


The Slytherin Champion

by Jazz_394



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 41
Words: 120,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23819173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jazz_394/pseuds/Jazz_394
Summary: What if, instead of the kind Hufflepuff Cedric Diggory, the name chosen by the Goblet of fire was that of a silver tongued Slytherin? Follow her as she navigates her life in the Wizarding world whilst also dealing with a family reputation and expectations she needs to uphold.
Kudos: 2





	1. The Quidditch World Cup

“Hurry up, Lana”

“I’m sorry but in case you haven’t noticed Alex there a lot of stairs”

The older of the two siblings stopped to catch her breath for the fourth time since the family had started their walk up the stairs to the Minister’s box.  
She recomposed herself, moved her short brown hair from her face and with a very breathless voice continued. “not all of us can be the young, handsome, Slytherin chaser Alexander Rowle.”

“You say that like you’re eighty-three, and not, you know, sixteen”

The two kept up this argument for another five minutes, if you can believe that, until their mother finally called for them to be quiet and wait for her and their father to catch them up, as the argument had ended in a race and they were now several flights above their parents.

The two did as they were told but were very agitated the entire time, it’s not every day you get to go to the final of the Quidditch World cup. When their parents finally caught up, they started with their usual do not embarrass us in front of all these important people speech, which contained the usual stuff. Like “look down on people when we tell you to”, “don’t speak unless spoken to” the list of old-fashioned rules goes on. The number one rule that their father always finishes with, in the exact same tone, and the exact same phrasing “now, I will have none of the Alex, Lana nonsense from this moment onwards you are Alexander and Alana” he had made this statement so many times that the two teenagers both mouthed it along with him.

Their father had an obsession with looking proper in front of people. Their family was one of the “Sacred 28”. 28 pureblood families that span back centuries. This made their mother and father very full of themselves.

Therefore, the family always looked presentable and today was no exception. Thorfinn Rowle was a tall man with blonde hair, he was burly and very stern looking. This was amplified by the fact that he was currently wearing an expensive black suit, he wanted to wear his best robes but anti-muggle precautions meant he couldn’t. He had a thick beard, gruff voice and he always stood tall, and towered over his wife, Maureen Rowle, who stood at a reasonable height but compared to her husband, she was tiny. She was also very stern, her brown hair had been pulled tightly into a bun with streaks of grey shooting through it and she was wearing an expensive dress with earrings, necklace, several bracelets and her wedding rings.

Although their marriage was arranged by their families to keep the pureblood line going, they had genuinely fallen in love and very happy together. They worked together serving the dark lord as young adults. This is something they try to brush over the best they can. Everyone knows their past but no one dares bring it up. They are not the only family in this position the Malfoys are exactly the same. Their parents had worked very hard to maintain a good reputation in the wizarding world and often put a lot of pressure on their children to do the same.

Today that was very prominent, Alex looked slightly uncomfortable in a shirt, trousers and nice shoes. His blonde hair had been forcibly slicked back by his mother and his shirt had been shoved into his trousers haphazardly something Maureen would notice and fix very quickly. He was 15, tall and rather handsome. He had a few freckles dotted along his face, a very distinct jawline and if you were to untuck his shirt and lift it up you would find a good set of slightly tan abs due to all the quidditch playing. This often attracted a lot of girls but he was never showed interest in any of them which was strange as some of them were “very nice young pureblood women” as his mother would put it. When it came to looks, he definitely leant toward his dad.

His sister Lana on the other hand leant towards her mum. She was 16 and just under average height for her age. She too had brown hair that fell just above her shoulders and was covered in curls, her mum’s would be too if she ever let it down, she was a rather thin girl, because although she may not seem it, what with how she handled the stairs, she too was very athletic not as much as her brother but still she was an excellent quidditch player and a fantastic runner. Her face was long and dotted with freckles, her nose was small and slightly pointed, her eyes were kind and her skin was slightly tan. She was wearing turtle neck black top, black skirt, knee high black socks and heeled boots. Her hair was in a half up, half down with a silk scrunchie, a few lose strands framing her face and she wore some light make up. She wore a few bracelets and a set of pearl earrings, she actually had several different piercings in each ear and a nose piercing on the left side but she was never allowed to wear them in public. She had them all done in Hogsmeade in her fifth year and had been severely punished for it.

She was now going into her sixth year at Hogwarts with O’s in every subject she took. She was a prefect and number one candidate for head girl. She was also, obviously given her family, a Slytherin but never really agreed with pureblood mentality she actually had a lot of friends all with different blood type and Hogwarts houses. Alex obviously knew about all of them but never told on her, to be fair he owed her a secret considering she has walked in to find him snogging Blaise Zabini’s face of last year and never said anything about hence why Alex never really showed any interest in girls.

They had reached the ministers box and Lana was of in her own little world wonder how the match would turn out when the sound of her name brought her back to reality.  
“You remember my children Alana and Alexander”

“Oh yes, yes I do, grown up a bit haven’t they”

“Yes, minister Alana her will be starting her NEWTs this year and she is spoiled for choice what with getting O’s in every subject”

Of course, he would bring that up Lana thought.

“So, Alana, I suppose you’re very excited from this year at Hogwarts, all things considered?”

“I’m sorry sir, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Lana said timidly. Her father sensing her nerves, placed his hands on her shoulders, in a comforting sort of fashion.

“Alana, like the rest of the Hogwarts students, has to be kept in the dark, until they arrive at the school, it’s a shame, but we like to stick to rules, don’t we Alana?” Lana nodded.

“But rest assured, if she meets all the requirements, she will be attempting to enter, but there is stiff competition at Hogwarts.”

“Of course, of course, still, always nice to hold out a little hope with these sorts of things.”

“Indeed,” Thorfinn said as he squeezed Lana’s shoulders.

At that moment Lucius Malfoy and his family came into the box and began talking to the minister. Draco, his son, noticed Alex and started chatting to him about quidditch tactics for this year. And Lana quietly went and found her seat. She only got five minutes peace, before she heard commotion Malfoy and her father had stated to taunt Arthur Weasley and his family.

“Good God Arthur how did you afford these seats” Malfoy started.

“I wouldn’t think your house would be enough to pay for these” Thorfinn continued

This continued for a little while with the two of them insulting the family and their two guests who Lana noticed as Harry Potter himself and Hermione Granger. Lana kept her eyes on her shoes and Alex looked like he was trying to focus on his conversation with Draco. They both hated it their father insulted people.

When they had finally finished her father came and sat down and the game began. It was absolutely riveting the Irish chasers were amazing and Lana was blown away by their form, and the mascots were half of the entrainment, the Irish leprechauns were very competitive and the Vela’s took everything to heart, it was getting borderline violent by the time the match ended.

However, Lana was also distracted by the fact that her father and Malfoy were having a very hushed concerned conversation which could only mean trouble. She didn’t let it bother her too much but kept a mental note to keep an eye on them.

The game ended by Ireland winning but the Bulgarian seeker, Krum, getting the snitch. Who would have guessed that? The two families walked backed together. Alex and Draco were practically jumping with excitement as they talked about the game, both going on about their favourite moves and how they would need to use some of them in their Quidditch games this year. The atmosphere was excited but also tired, the night had been very overwhelming and Lana was beginning to fade. Halfway through both sets of parents stopped and the children followed suit.

“We have some business to attend to” Maureen said. With a tone that clearly said don’t ask what. “Go back to the Malfoy tent and we will meet you later” she continued.

The mood had changed completely, Lana began to shuffle her feet and Alex was suddenly very interested in one of the rings on his hand, Draco started to fix his hair and his clothes. Not one of them wanted to look their parents in the eyes.

“We will be back when we have finished with what we are attending to, do not leave the tent under any circumstances. Have I made myself clear?” Thorfinn had a very stern tone in his voice.

“That goes for you too, Draco, stay put.”

“Yes, mother.” He didn’t look up form the buttons of his shirt.

“Should we bring, Alana along for this one? We need to build up her tolerance for these sorts of events, she’s going to be of age in just over a month.” Maureen was looking over to Lana with a sort of fire in her eyes.

“I think that’s an excellent idea Maureen.” Narcissa said, her tone cold and harsh.

“I don’t see why not,” Luscious drawled, “she needs the experience.”

Lana looked between them terrified, she had never wanted to be a part of anything they did she just wanted to finish Hogwarts and start training to become a healer. Her parents both worked in different sectors of magical law enforcement, their work was harsh and uncaring and Lana didn’t want of within ten feet of it.

She looked over to her father, he looked at her. Seeing the fear in her eyes, he bent down slightly and gave her a short and questioning shake of his head as if to asker her permission, it was practically unnoticeable and was his way of asking ‘no?’

Lana shook her head, very quickly back at him as if to say ‘NO’

He straightened up and began to speak.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, she hasn’t been prepared for any of it, she will not be able to handle herself if caught, and it would ruin her reputation with her teachers at school.”

Lana could have run up and hugged him, her surge of relief was so strong it was almost a high. Her father had always been the more protective of her parents, he had yet to make Lana do anything she didn’t want to do, but as her time underage began to dwindle, she couldn’t see that lasting. 

“Alright then,” her mother sighed, “but as soon as she’s of age and out of that school, she’s going to have to get some experience.” And with that she turned around and made her way in the opposite direction from the tent. The Malfoys followed closely behind her. Thorfinn paused for a minute and began to walk. As he passed Lana, he grabbed her shoulder.

“I can’t hold her back forever; you’re going to have to build up some stamina.” Lana nodded silently. He let her go and jogged slightly to catch up with his wife.

“Did he say something about getting caught?” 

The three kids looked at each other this couldn’t be good.


	2. The woods

The three Death Eater kids all walked apprehensively back to the Malfoy tent, as they were all saying there. It was not a long walk but Lana felt like it went on for ages. You could cut the tension between the three with a knife. They were all so worried about what on earth their parents were up to, or at least that’s what Lana thought until she looked up at Draco, he seemed tense but a fair bit calmer than the other two. Alex clearly had noticed to as a he gave Lana a look that she instantly read as.

“He obviously knows what is going on.”  
“true”. Lana sent back  
“What should we do?” was Alex’s reply   
“Nothing for now”  
“You’re boring”  
“No, I’m responsible, we don’t want get on his bad side”  
“Fine”

They made their way through the campsite, the atmosphere of the area was amazing, the sounds of light cheers filled the area, Lana could hear small fireworks going off somewhere. They hear small glimpses of muffled conversations, all seemed to be talking about different parts of the match, Lana would be loving it, if it weren’t for the fear looming over her. What were her parents up to? Were they really about to start making her take part? She wasn’t ready for that, she would never be ready, this was not what she wanted. At all. 

They continued to the tent and Lana tried to soak in the calm atmosphere other people were creating to calm her nerves. She started to get a bit cold, she leaned over to Alex for warmth and he put an arm around her and let her rest her head on his shoulder. They stayed like that for the whole walk neither of them talking but both of them understanding.  
When they got there, they all went their separate ways. Once Lana was alone in her own little section of the mansion hidden by magic, though not well the Malfoys are such show-offs. She began to get into her pjs but with no plan of sleeping. How could she? When her parents were off at the biggest wizard gathering in years, planning Merlin knows what.

Lana kept herself busy by reading book, listening to ‘The Weird Sisters’ or both at the same time she danced around the room, sat on her bed, but she never stayed still for long she was too agitated, but she tired not to let it get the best of her. She finally found a position that made her comfortable, it was laying on the floor looking at the ceiling. Some people a few tents down where playing some very loud music so, Lana turned off the weird sisters and just listen to the muffled tunes and thought about life, she was really missing her friends, they were all different blood types so she could never have them over during the summers, it had been ages since she had seen any of them, as the only pureblood Slytherin had gone on holiday all summer so Lana had been left with nothing but letters. Lana stayed in that somewhat relaxed position until around ten o’clock when all of a sudden.

BOOM.

Lana shot up from her relaxed position on the floor. She walked out of the of her room to find Alex chucking on a jacket wand in hand running for the exit of the tent   
“there’s a Death Eater rally, and I’m sure mum and dad are there, we need to get to the woods. Draco has already gone” his voice was assertive but shaky.

Lana sprinted into her room chucked on her slippers and a cardigan and ran back out. She reached for Alex to take her shaky hands and he obliged and together they ran for the door.  
When they got outside, they were overcome by the mess of terrified people all for some reason looking up, curious Lana followed suit and to her horror the family of Mr Roberts, the muggle who owns the campsite, was in the air, all being levitated by a clump of wizards in cloaks. It didn’t take Lana a long time to realise who the hooded figures were.  
“Death Eaters” she said aloud. There was pain in her voice knowing her parents were definitely there.  
“That’s why they were acting funny” Alex called out “they were planning this” he said he was very panicked at this point.   
There was a very loud scream and Lana looked up to see Mrs Roberts upside down exposing her underwear the crowd cheered. Alex tugged on Lana’s hand and moved them towards the woods. They found it very difficult, people were running everywhere, screaming and crying. Lana could hear the distant sound of flames and she was starting to smell smoke. She clung to Alex tightly to make sure she didn’t lose him in the crowd. They slipped in-between people and made it into the woods.   
The atmosphere in the wood was that of a silently terrified one. The woods itself didn’t help the trees were at least fifty feet tall and loomed over everyone intimidatingly. It was extremely dark, and the tree roots all stuck out at random places meaning one wrong step and you would face plant on to the cold ground, the ground was cold and squished under your feet every time you took a step. The smell of burning tents still persisted. It penetrated your nostrils and left them burning it was so strong. But that wasn’t the worst of it, it was the sounds. There was the creek on the ground. The leaves of the trees all whistling in the wind as if they themselves are also scared. Owls and crickets echoed through the night it was eerie it felt like it was almost too quiet. The quiet of the wood would occasionally be dispelled by screams from every direction. Screams of pain, screams of fear the different yells of desperation echoed through the woods. Alex and Lana persisted nonetheless, people all around them were having hushed conversations, muffled crying could be heard all the time, it never stopped.

At one point they walked past a girl whose leg had been cut on something, a broken but of tent was Lana’s best guess. Despite Alex tugging on her, and whispering.  
“We don’t have time! We need to go.”  
Lana made her way over and offered to help, she began to use a healing charm to magically stitch up the wound, she spoke with the girl, who looked to a little bit younger than Alex, and found out that she was an American witch from Salem and that her family had been in Salem since the witch trails.  
“They never killed and actual witch, they either falsely accused muggles, or the real witches used flame freezing charms, and invisible platforms whilst being hung to stay alive.”

“Well, what did they expect? that these magical beings were going to die just like that.” Lana scoffed as she finished up healing the last bit of the wound.

Once it was all sealed up, Lana began to clean up the blood from her leg. She thanked Lana and then headed off deeper into the woods in search of her parents.  
Lana, whose legs were starting to give, in decided to sit down for a moment.

This was her first mistake, as not long after she had done this a tall figure walked by her, then another following the first closely and then a smaller one. The latter tripping over her and falling to the floor.  
“Watch it!” Lana exclaimed hand over head.

This was her second mistake.

“Hey it’s dark out here, if anything it your fault she tripped over you, you are on the floor.” A voice said.  
At this comment Lana got up and made the decision to use her wand to illuminate the situation.

This was her third mistake.

After the light from her wand had shone through the trees, she met the eyes of none other than one of the Weasley twins  
“Look what we have here Freddie. A Rowle” the figure, Lana guessed was George Weasley, said the last word with so much spite that Lana recoiled.

“Oh really, which one?” the other, Fred, said. With just as much spite.

“The girl, but her little brother is definitely her too.” At this Alex took a step back. The Weasley twins weren’t particularly kind to any of the Slytherins sand when you were in the house team it was even worse. They terrorise all of them. Lana can remember the time in her first year a week after she had been sorted, she woke up one morning with bright green hair and the word ‘snake’ on her left arm. That little prank didn’t go away for two days, if it weren’t for the fact that she was really angry she would of probably have been impressed with the magic that they used.  
Lana noticed that Alex seem really scared and she couldn’t blame him so she decided to stand up for them.

“I’m sorry your sister was dumb enough to trip over me, now could please leave us alone.” Lana said assertively, which was rather difficult considering the twins towered over her. However, she did manage to get George to take a step back.

She began to walk deeper into the woods when someone grabbed her wrist.  
“Going so soon” Fred spat still holding Lana’s wrist.  
“Think she and her brother were to go join their parents, I’m guessing they are out there torturing muggles” George finished.  
At this Lana and Alex both looked down at the ground not wanting to face the fact that he was right, they were out there torturing muggles. At this though Lana’s eyes began to well, but she didn’t let the twins she this. Any sign of weakness and you’re dead her, parents raised her on this mentality and so far, it had yet to fail her. It’s a good mentality to have when you’re a Slytherin because you tend to get a reputation amongst the entire school for being evil. With that reputation you also get everyone breathing down you necks waiting for you to slip up and say something you shouldn’t, if you haven’t already been a giant dick on purpose and most Slytherins aren’t like that just Malfoy and that lot.  
Lana struggled to get herself free form Fred’s grip but he wouldn’t let go. She gave up but that was when a blast of yellow light shot past her and hit Fred square in the face. He stumbled back and let go of Lana, who turned around to Alex wand up pointing at Fred. She followed to wand back to Fred to see that this nose was bleeding. George and Ginny, the younger girl who had been there the whole time, looked outraged they had their wands up at Alex, when all of a sudden, the woods filled with screams.  
Lana looked up to see green mist swirling to beginning to make a shape. Lana didn’t need to look twice to know what it was she had seen it enough on her parents arms it was the dark mark.  
Lana sat there staring knowing what it had meant someone has died at the Death Eaters hands and she dreaded knowing who. She was pulled out of her trance by one of the Weasleys yelling.  
“Come on” and with that the three Weasleys ran off together.  
Lana focused herself, grabbed Alex’s hand and pulled him back to the direction of the tent knowing full well that the Death Eaters were finished with their little crusade and if her parents got back to the tent to find their kids weren’t there, she and Alex were dead.


	3. After the attack

Lana and Alex made their way quickly back to the tent, Lana was fuming as she walked.

“Merlin, those Weasleys are so ignorant, why do they always act like they have leverage over us, I could’ve cursed them out of existence if I wanted to, but I didn’t because, I’m, not y’know an asshole.”

“I know Lan, but we’ve got bigger problems now.” Alex huffed as he broke out into a run.  
“Yeah, right sorry.” And she jogged to keep up with him. 

When Lana and Alex got back the tent they were, unfortunately, met by their parents who looked furious. Upon seeing their two children Maureen and Thorfinn stood up. They both look menacing standing there. Thorfinn and brought himself up to his full height and towered over his two children, if his normal self wasn’t terrifying on its own the fact that his face was covered in cuts and he had a long bruise going down his arm didn’t help the siblings’ nerves. Their mother wasn’t much better her arms were folded over her chest and as she walked forward to her children she limped.  
At the sight of his parent so angry Alex took a step back, but Lana held her ground no matter how much she wanted to hide behind the furniture like she did when she was child. She would do this a lot growing up it was just a game back then not a coping mechanism, she wouldn’t hide for fear she would hide for fun. Every time she did her dad would jump out at her playfully and throw her over his shoulder while she kicked to be free. You see when they aren’t angry at their kids Thorfinn and Maureen were very loving parents they were extremely supportive as long as they agreed with what their child was doing. They bought Alex his first broom when he was four and showing signs of magic and quidditch ability. They got Lana a piano teacher when they woke up one morning to the sound of her little, six-year-old fingers fiddling with the keys of the old grand piano that sat in the living room gathering dust.  
There were a couple of things that just would not allow like friends of different blood types and Lana wasn’t sure how they would react to the Alex being gay thing, but they weren’t bad. Lana had seen parents that were accepting of everything and occasionally she would get a bit jealous but that family never looked as poised as they were, their family was rather respected and although Lana would never admit it, she enjoyed that respect just a little bit.  
She was whisked out of the spell that was her childhood memories by her mother speaking  
“What part of say in the tent did you not understand?” she wasn’t shouting but Lana wished she would. Her tone was quiet but menacing. Lana had only herd her speak that way twice in her life. The first time was when she was seven and Alex, whilst flying around on his broom in the garden, had accidently sped into the house and knocked over Grandma Dorothy’s ashes vase. The second time was when Lana had come home this summer with all her piercings.  
“The part where you and dad were running around with all your death eater friends, burning them all” Lana retorted  
Her parents didn’t like this.  
“You do not talk to your mother like that, you have no idea what we were doing” her father growled  
“Well that fact that you are covered in cuts and bruises and mum’s limping suggests that you guys were out there levitating those muggles and when the ministry tried to stop you, you fought back”  
Her parents went silent.  
“Am I wrong?” she questioned knowing full well she was right  
“AM I WRONG” she shouted all of her frustration at the two boiling up to point where she exploded.  
Her father gave her one last look of what, could have been sorrow, before walking out with her mother on his heels. Lana hated it when they did that, they would just avoid being wrong by walking out the situation without a word. Although it was rather hypocritical of Lana to hate it as it was number one strategy when she was losing arguments. But she never did with as much pride she often did it because she couldn’t take the stress and the tension of the fight anymore, and would almost always cry as soon as she was out of earshot and no one could see her.  
Speaking of crying, the moment her parents had gone she broke down sobbing nonstop. Alex went over to comfort her although silent tears were streaming down his face as well.  
“they p-promised they w-would st-top.” Lana whispered through sobs. “they s-said they would leave it alone.” She continued  
“I know.” Alex said trying to be comforting but he choked as speaking the tears becoming less silent.  
“we’re gonna get so much shit for this at school” Lana sniffled the crying beginning to stop. “the Gryffindors are going to be unbearable they hate every single one of us” Lana was absolutely sure of this, Gryffindors of every year will have fun making sure she never forgets that her parents were part of the Dark Lords followers. They all already did this anyway but now they had so much more ammunition.  
“We’re going to have to keep an eye on some of the younger Slytherins who aren’t used to all the accusations yet” Alex said while stroking Lana’s hair, as he was already taller than her.  
“I didn’t even think of that, but yeah. I can already imagine their sacred little faces as seventh year Gryffindors give them shit”  
“are we still collecting howlers this year?”  
“yeah.” ‘Collecting howlers’ was something Lana, Alex and a few other different students did. It’s were two people form each house go around their house table the morning after the sorting and collect, then destroy, any howlers from family members that were upset with what house the first year got. This happened a lot. Parents unhappy their kid was in the ‘evil house’. Pureblood parents unhappy with the fact that their child is in a house full of ‘mudbloods’ and ‘blood traitors’. This all happened after Lana was in the library looking through books in her second year, when she found a book called “50 Magical Ways to Avoid Embarrassment”, and page 132 was dedicated to stopping a howler before it can begin screaming. She taught Alex it then began chatting with some of her friends from different houses, and they were all really into the idea and ever since they have been saving first years from the embarrassment of getting a howler on the first day.  
The two stayed there hugging it could have been hours it could have been minutes, but eventually Alex began yawning and Lana’s big sister instincts kicked in demanding him to go to bed. He obliged a lot quicker that Lana expected, it only took her two rather affirmative ‘NOWs’ before he went up to bed. Lana sat down on one of the sofas. She just sat in silence for about fifteen minutes, when the Malfoys entered the tent  
“Have the rest of your family gone to bed” Draco asked as his parents walked up a corridor to even making eye contact with Lana.  
“Yeah, what took you guys so long?”  
“Some ministry officials took a really long time questioning my parents about what happened, because you know, they were death eaters and all that, farther came up with an excuse. But I know for a fact they were there.”  
“Yeah, mine were definitely there too.”  
“It’s kind of frustrating.”  
“Tell me about it, and now we’re going to have to protect the rest of the house as well, especially the younger one who aren’t used to it”  
“Yeah everyone is going to be assholes about this. Well maybe not the Hufflepuffs they’re all pushovers.”  
“Hey! They are not pushovers, well some of them are, but most of them are just kind, my friends are always protecting me when I get shit in the hallways” Lana’s voice was beginning to come out hoarse, she was so tired   
“Alright, but the ones I know are all pushovers.” Draco yawned. “I’m going to bed, and I suggest you do too you look fucking awful” and with that he left the room and went up a corridor. Lana rubbed her red, puffy eyes and walked up to bed. As soon as she got to her room she collapsed onto her bed and was asleep within minutes. Finally relaxed after a long stressful day.


	4. The train

The rest of the summer for Lana was rather uneventful. Her parents were still acting rather weird, hushed conversations that stop as soon as she or Alex would enter the room and her father would go into the Ministry at random times of the day for ‘emergency meetings’. He worked closely with the department for international cooperation within his work as a law enforcer, so he had been having a lot of emergency meetings in the lead up to and during the world cup, but that was finished now so Lana could not fathom why was still having so many.

Lana spent the rest of her summer, practicing piano or playing with her cat Nova. Nova was a one-year old, black, Turkish Angora. Thorfinn decided to get Lana him after she became a prefect as a reward, and if she was honest it was the best gift she has ever received. He was just so perfect, he would curl up on her lap and just purr whenever she was stressed, he was very playful which often calmed Lana down. She just could not imagine having any other pet.

The summer passed very quickly and very soon Lana found herself on the crowded platform for the Hogwarts Express saying goodbye to her parents.

“We’ll see you at Christmas” Alex mumbled, rather quickly. Had had spotted one of his friends and was clearly eager to go and join them.

“Just wait a minute Alex, because I don’t think you will.” Her mother added.

The sibling turned around in utter confusion they always went home for Christmas. They’re family had so many traditions and everyone always got together at her uncles’ giant mansion. It would weird, wrong even, to miss it.

“What? Why? Do you guys have something on?” Lana asked.

“No, but you will” her mother replied with a smug look on her face.

“oh yes, very exciting, I’m almost jealous.” Her father continued, also looking very smug.

“what is it!” Alex exclaimed clearly impatient with the two of them

“You will find out soon enough.” And with that the whistle went, Lana and Alex went to go board the train. Once on the step Lana looked back to wave goodbye to see that her parents had already disappeared from the crowd.

Lana walked down the corridor in search of her friends. She passed several carriages. One had a group of third years all talking adamantly about something, one had a small huddle of first years all looking terrified and one had her friends.

Her friends were a very mixed group house wise. There was Mandy a Hufflepuff and a half-blood, Diane a Ravenclaw and a pureblood, Lucy a Gryffindor and they aren’t really sure what she is, her dad ran away as soon as he found out her mum was pregnant and could very easily be a wizard but her mum was definitely a muggle, Samaira another Hufflepuff and muggle born, and Ava a Slytherin, obviously a pureblood. They were all sat in their usual spots in the compartment. Mandy was gazing out the window in her own little world, Diane was reading the Daily Prophet next to her, Samaira was sat on the floor reading a muggle book while Lucy sat above her plaiting her hair. Ava was sat next to Lucy knitting, next to Ava was Lana’s spot it was by the window.  
It had become her spot when she sat in it in her first year cuddled up and alone reading her book, then Ava came in asked if she could sit with Lana as her brother had abandoned her to go with his friends, Lana said yes and the two got along instantly. Ava was tall, pale, with dark red curly hair, her face was covered with freckles and she was rather timid and never really spoke unless she was with her friends, then she would never shut up.

About half an hour later Lucy walked up to the compartment door and rather confidently stated that she was going to have to sit there as everywhere else was full, the other two were sceptical at first but as time went on, they became close. Lucy was short and had curly blond hair that came to her waist she was confident which was helpful as she never let anyone treat her friends badly and was never afraid to call anyone out on their bullshit.

Next was Samaira she quietly knocked on the door and asked if she could sit because ‘you all seem so nice’ were the words Lana recalled her using. She was not short but she was wasn’t tall either, she had coffee coloured skin, long black hair that fell straight down her back and a pointed nose. Her parents where muggles who moved to England from India before she and her brother were born, this meant she had a slight accent and could speak Hindi not fluent but enough to have conversations with her parents and curse people into oblivion without them even noticing.  
Lana met the other two during her first week, Diane in potions where they concocted the best boil cure out of the entire class, and Mandy in the library when Lana helped her with their transfiguration homework, and soon introduced them to the rest of her friends and now six years later they were a close-knit group with too many inside jokes to count.

As soon as Lana entered the compartment she was met with a string of ‘heys’ and Mandy hugging her. As soon as Mandy let go, she gave Lana a look that she knew too well.

“Gimmie, a minute Mand I’ve just got here”

“oh, please”

“fine here.” Lana gave Mandy the wicker basket that had Nova in it as she immediately got him out and began playing with him, she loved that bloody cat.

“you could just get one of your own.” Diane chipped in not looking up from the crossword she was doing.

“You know my mum will never let me, and I don’t blame her I can’t keep plants alive.” This was true any plant in Mandy’s care would die within a week. Mandy was very caring but very forgetful. It was kind of cute if Lana was honest. Mandy was the youngest of the group and was often seen as ‘the cute one’ she was rather curvy, with dark skin, deep brown eyes and her natural hair sitting just above her shoulders with lots of small curls. She may seem cute, but the number of quiet hexes that she sent to people being assholes beat anyone else in the group.

“That’s fair” Diane said. Diane was the only Ravenclaw in the group and they all appreciated her greatly. She stared off using the ‘I won’t let you copy but I will help you’ technique with homework but as they went up the year she gave up and just let them look at her work. She was short with wavy brown hair; her mother was a muggle born to two Korean parents who moved to England just before the Korean war to escape the divide as they were on opposite sides of the split. Her father was English and a pureblood wizard. Diane was a rather beautiful mix between the two and knew small parts of Korean that she picked up from hearing her mother talking to her grandparents.

Lana went and sat down. She looked out the window to see flashes of county side; her mind was occupied by what her parents had said. What on earth were they talking about? Was all she could hear as it swam around her brain. It wasn’t until Samaira was snapping in her face that she realised she was talking.

“Lana, LANA! Hello?”

“mmhm, sorry what were you saying Sammy?”

“I asked how your summer was”

“oh, it was alright, the world cup was cool until you know” she trailed off

“yeah I heard about that” Lucy joined the conversation. “I can’t believe what happened, what kind of monsters, OWW!” she stopped as Samaira had nudged her in the knee with her elbow “what was that for?!” she said indignantly Sam gestured to Lana whose eyes were welling

“Oh, merlin Lana, I’m so sorry, I-I didn’t think”

“It’s fine, don’t worry” she sniffed

“Do you know they were involved?” Diane asked sympathetically

“Yeah, they were, they came back acting really weird and didn’t deny it when I asked, they just walked away without a word.” She decided to leave out the part about how she was nearly forced to join in, as she didn’t want to worry them too much. She recomposed herself and began talking again.

“So, how were everyone else’s summers?”

The girls all began one by one to explain their holidays, Ava’s was naturally the most interesting, her family had spent the whole summer in France, Lana was so jealous, the magical community in Paris was consider to be one of the most cultured places in the wizarding world. Diane was a close second, she had gone to South Korea with her Grandparents to see where her Grandmother had grown up, she had so many magical pictures, that moved as the busy streets changed.

The train continued to move, small conversations would arise, but even in the silence the aurar was always warm, and relaxed.

“Is everyone ready to start NEWTs, this year?” Diane asked

“I mean, yeah, but they literally stand for nastily exhausting wizarding tests, it going to be a lot of work.” Lucy shuffled in her seat, out of all of them she struggled in school the most, she was excellent at practical work, but hated doing written work.

“I’m ready, I need all best grades to get into healer training.”

“We know Lan.”

*

Time dragged, on Nova had jumped between all of them and gotten a fuss from everyone, so he was now curled up on Lana’s lap as she sat crossed legged on the floor letting Ava play with her hair.

“Guys I have to tell you something.” Sam said sheepishly.

“Spill.” Lucy said looking away from the compartment door, she had always loved people watching.

“I’ve started talking with this boy.”

“Oh my God,” Mandy squealed.

They had never really had boyfriends within the group, Diane had a short flirtation in third year, Lucy had plenty of boys into her, that she had never given the time of day. And the girls insisted that boys had been fawning over Lana ever since her growth spurt at the start of fourth year. But other than that, they’d never really noticed boys, so the news that Sam might be getting into a relationship was by far the most exciting thing to happen for them in a while.

“He’s one of my brother’s friends, so he’s a couple of years older than me, and he has no-idea about all this,” She gestured around the compartment, “but he’s really nice, and every moment with him this summer has been amazing. And once, I’m out of here, I might still go to muggle university, and might even get a muggle job, so dating a muggle wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”

“Sam that’s amazing!” Lana was over the moon for Sam, she knew that she wanted to go to university and if she was going to have a muggle guy to do it with, well that was going to be perfect.

Another half an hour later Lana began to get hungry, so she needed to find some food.

“I’m going to find the trolley; do you guys want anything?” She got everyone’s order and stopped them offering to pay for own.

“No, no it’s my treat.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah it’s fine, honest”

Before anyone else could complain she slipped out the door and down the corridor. She was so focused on remembering what everyone wanted that she forgot to look up and promptly bumped onto someone.

“sorry” murmured she didn’t look up due to being embarrassed, but realised who it was when they said.

“we have got to stop meeting like this” George Weasley. You’ve got to be kidding.


	5. Nosebleeds and Nova’s approval

“We have got to stop meeting like this.”

“meeting like what?” God, why did this have to happen? Why couldn’t she go get the sweets from the trolley with no interruptions.

“Y’know, you bumping into me”

“That has never happened before, last time we ran into each other your sister tripped over me while I minded my own business, I did not bump into you.” She let the words slip off her tongue coolly but deep down she was scared, all her past interactions with the twins had never ended well.

“Same thing.”

“It’s really not.”

“Okay, so maybe it’s a little different.” He said with a smirk on his face. When Lana looked at that smirk, she felt an odd feeling. It wasn’t hatred, which is what she normally felt whenever she looked at the Weasley twins, no it was almost as if she found it cute. With that thought she felt a little bile come up in her throat. She could never like a Weasley, her parents would not allow it. she was snapped out of her spiral by George asking her something she couldn’t quite hear over all the sounds of the train.

“Sorry, what?” she looked up to George only to see him with his clone, his face had changed from the soft smile to a foul grin.

“I said.” This was when she realised that George was not the one talking anymore. He was standing by his twin, looking at her with malice, but as she looked at him closer, she could see the smallest amount of remorse in his eyes.

“What is a snake like you doing in this end of the train. Shouldn’t you be in the Slytherin carriage thinking you are better than everyone else.” Fred continued. His face was almost the same as George’s except there was no remorse in his eyes just pure hatred.

“first off, I don’t sit with the Slytherins, barely any off us do. There’s just about Thirty assholes who sit there on their high horses. The rest off us are spread across the train. Second off, I’m just trying to find the trolley to get some food, so if you would excuse me.” She tried to slip pass Fred in the direction of the trolley, which had just appeared at the end of the corridor, but he stopped her.

“Did you really think I would let you go without getting a good hex in first.” He said menacingly hands on her shoulders.

“C’mon mate, leave it. she’s not worth our time.” Lana suddenly felt a surge of gratitude towards George. He had never acted like that with her before, he would normally be just like Fred.

“God when did you get boring, feeling bad Georgie? There is no need, you know we never do this unless they deserve it.”

“Yeah, but we really don’t want to get into trouble on the train, mum would kill us.” Fred let her go. She looked at him in awe.

“don’t look at me like that if I could have it my way you would be on the ceiling by now.” He snarled. She walked passed him to go to the trolley. She didn’t make it far before she heard Fred whisper something and George yell something at him in frustration.

She felt something hit her back and all of a sudden, her nose is pouring with blood.

“shit!” Was all she could make out before the flow got so bad that she could barely talk. She covered her nose and mouth with her hand and turned around to see Fred being pulled in to a compartment by George.

Lana rushed to the bathrooms blood trickling through her fingers onto her clothes, and at that moment she was very thankful to still be in her baggy jeans and white crop top, not her school robes. When she finally got to the toilets, she grabbed a shit ton of tissue and held it up to her nose catching the blood flow. When the blood was beginning to slow and it no longer fell on her top, she slid down the wall so she was sat cross-legged on the floor.

Her nose was still going around five minutes later and by this point the whole interaction had finally got to her, and she was now letting silent tears falling down her face. She was just letting everything swirl round her head. How could she be catching feelings for a Weasley? He was funny she thought. Most of the times he made a joke, is she could hear him and it wasn’t about Slytherins, she would secretly laugh to herself. He was definitely attractive, that she knew for a fact. He was tall and muscular; his hair was a nice ginger shade, if not a bit long but if he cut it would be really cute.

At the same time, she continued, there was the small thing of him being a slight dick, but he was nice today, what if that was a one off? Then there was the fact that if her parents ever found out she liked a Weasley she wouldn’t make it to seventeen.

Lana’s thought process was interrupted by a girl with bushy brown hair, who she recognised as Hermione Granger, walking into the bathroom. Hermione didn’t make it far before she noticed Lana on the floor; nose still bleeding, eyes still pouring with tears.

“Are you alright?” she said warmly.

“Why would you care Granger?” she sapped. She didn’t mean to she was just rather pissed off. She already felt bad as she watched Hermione’s face change from warmth to anger.

“I was just trying to help, I’ll stop trying if you don’t want it though, which you clearly don’t.” she said firmly. With that she began to walk out of the room

“Wait, I’m sorry. I’m just a bit pissed off.” Lana said desperately.

“I can tell that.” Hermione said turning back around. “So, lets begin with why your nose bleeding.”

“The Weasley twins are dicks.” She said bluntly.

“sorry, what?” Hermione asked looking puzzled. Lana then went on the explain what happened with her and the twins. When she was done Hermione just looked at her for a minute, then she finally spoke.

“The thing with Fred and George is they don’t really know when to stop, but they never do much harm. I mean they obviously do some harm looking at you. But they are just like that sometimes. It’s not right but there is not much you can do except to ignore them.”

“Yeah” Lana said quietly.

“I’ll talk to them, maybe even threaten them with a letter to their mother.” With that comment Lana began to giggle.

“thanks Hermione.”

“Do you want me to sort out your nose?” Hermione asked.

“Yes please, I tried several times but it wouldn’t stop”

“yeah, Fred and George have loads of products and spells like that, I think they want to open a joke shop, they test on each other and then use spells to get rid of them and I’ve learnt a few in case they hit me by accident.” She whispered a spell Lana didn’t recognise and her nose just stopped bleeding.

“thanks, I should probably get back to my friends.”

“Okay, well I will see you around Hogwarts.” Lana then did something she had never done before and leaned in to the Gryffindor and hugged her, the only other Gryffindor she had ever hugged was Lucy. Hermione accepted the hug and when they broke apart, they waved goodbye to each other, and Lana walked out of the bathroom and back down to her compartment.

When she got there, she was hit with a storm of questions.

“Where were you?”

“What took you so long?”

“Where’s our food?”

“Is that blood?”

Lana took a minute to compose herself and then began to explain once again what happened to her. When she was done Lucy jumped up from her seat, only to be caught Diane which was a good thing because she probably would have killed Fred, George and everyone in their compartment. Diane, even though she stopped Lucy from doing it, looked like she could go on an angry rampage. Mandy and Sam just sat there looking furious. Ava stayed still looking at the floor, she knew full well what it felt like to be judged by Gryffindors, what with being a Slytherin herself.

It was only after there had been a minute of awkward silence when Lana realised that everyone else had gotten changed into their robes.

“Oh, you guys are all changed.”

“yeah, we should be arriving in an hour.” Mandy said quietly

“I should probably do that too.” Lana said distantly not really thinking about what she was saying.

“especially, considering the fact that your clothes are covered in blood.” She grabbed her clothes on her seat and headed out of the compartment.

She didn’t take long as she didn’t want to encounter the twins again, but this was Lana and nothing ever goes her way. As she walked back to the compartment, with her robes on, she heard muffled shouting that got louder and louder as she got closer. When she was close enough to see the person screaming their head off, she realised it was Lucy. And the person she was yelling at George Weasley. As soon as she was close enough, she quickly got between them resting a hand on Lucy’s shoulder and gave her a look that clearly said “leave it.”

Lucy quietened down and headed back into the compartment huffing about Lana being too soft.

“Come for a second jab Weasley, please no hexes, I don’t want blood on these clothes as well.”

“No, I came to apologise, Fred was being a dick and.” He cut himself off and looked down in shock. Lana followed suit. Nova was weaving in-between his legs, rubbing his head against George’s calves affectionally.

“Hello” George said softly, looking down at the jet-black cat.

“He’s not normally that friendly at first, he must really like you.” Lana said offhandedly.

“What’s his name?” George queried.

“Nova, it’s Latin for nuclear, it just sounded powerful, not that it fits him he is a giant softie that will do anything for food.” Lana mused.

“He’s really cute.”

“Thanks.” Lana had half a mind to add on a you are too but restrained.

“What was I saying?” George continued. “Oh yeah, apology, um, yeah.” Lana could tell he was really nervous. “Fred was being a dick, and if I’m honest it was because he was frustrated, you see he has a massive crush on Angelina Johnson and she was ignoring all of his attempts to flirt with her.”

“I don’t blame her.” Lana mumbled. It was obvious George had heard her as began laughing.

“Yep, I would have to agree with you there, it wasn’t pretty.” He said amidst his laughter. “I mean being rejected isn’t an excuse for how he acted, but I thought I would come explain and apologise on his behalf.” He finished looking at her like she was also about to start screaming at him too.

“Well I really appreciate that, thank you.” She said sweetly.

“Oh yeah, I just remembered.” He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a bunch of different sweets. “You said something about going to the trolley, and I guess you never got there what with the nosebleed, how did you get rid of that by the way?”

“I ran into Hermione, and she helped me.” Lana said starring at George in awe, why was he being so nice?

“of course, should off guessed she would be able to manage that, yeah, so I’m guessing you didn’t make it to the trolley, so I got you some sweets.”

“Wow, thankyou but I can’t take this it’s your money.” Lana knew money was scarce in the Weasley house, her father never shut up about it.

“Technically, it’s Lee’s money but he doesn’t know where it’s going so it’s all good,” he looked at her still sceptical face “hey I’m not taking no for an answer, this will help me get how bad a feel of my conscience.”

“All right, but don’t be surprised if I pop up at Hogsmeade and offer to buy you some Zonko’s products.”

“Okay, deal.” With that they shook hands and he walked back to his compartment.

“Oh, and I’m sorry about Lucy, she means well.” Lana called down the corridor

“It’s alright I’m used to it we have differing views on quidditch and our conversations get quite heated in the common room.” With that Lana turned around and headed back to her friends.

When she got to her compartment, Nova at her heels, she was greeted by Mandy giving her the cheesiest grin ever.

“Listening, were you? And don’t look at me like that, it was just an apology.”

“Mmhhm.” Was all Mandy replied with, the most annoying look on her face, like she knew everything.

But when Lana sat down, she knew what Mandy was on about. She had butterflies in her stomach as she stroked Nova, but then they all went away when she thought about what her parents would think. This couldn’t happen. Could it?


	6. Arriving at Hogwarts

It took another forty-five minutes to get to Hogwarts (and five to finish the sweets George had Given Lana). In those forty-five minutes Lana was very quiet thinking about everything that had happened during the train ride so far. The girls had tried to question her about what her conversation with George had entailed but she gave them the same boring answer every time.

“C’mon, guys it was just an apology it doesn’t mean anything.” And one of them would very quickly reply with a sarcastic comment implying she was stupid for not seeing the whole picture.

However, Lana was not stupid, she was seeing the whole picture, the thing was she was so scared off it being true that she was just trying to convince herself of the lie, not anyone else. She could not like a Weasley, even as a friend let alone in that way, her parents would kill her. The there was also the problem that Lana had grown up on a very strict ‘do not show weakness’ mentality, she was the last to become really comfortable in the group, sure she would listen to all the silly stories and laugh along but she never told her own. She would always sit uptight while the rest sat very relaxed. The was like this until half way through her first year. She was sat alone in the library trying her hardest to finish her herbology essay, but at that point she wasn’t vert good at it. Anyone normal would have gone to their friends for help, but this was Alana Rowle she never asked for help. She had gotten to the point where she was close to tears and had been there for hours with no luck, when Diane walked into the the library in search of a book of her own.

“Oh, hey there you are, we’re were wondering where you had gotten to.”

“I’ve been here the whole time.” She said quietly “I’m just doing this herbology essay.”

“How’s it going.”

“Fine, just fine.” The lie in this statement was obvious given she was chocking with tears at this point.

“You sure?” She said sceptically. “I can help if you want.”

“I need to this own my own with no help, needing help is a sign of weakness.”

“It’s really not, c’mon what bit are you struggling on.” And with that Lana reluctantly scooted over in her chair to let Diane sit down and the two of them worked on the essay together. Lana was a lot more comfortable at showing weakness within the group.

She had openly sobbed in front of all of them when her gran died. Threw a glass at a wall in frustration when Lucy had been petrified in her fourth year. She had also realised that she was the best of the group at giving advice, she always knew exactly what to say. She helped Ava when her mum got really sick, she gave Samaria quidditch tips before matches, she was always there when the needed someone to vent to or a shoulder to cry on. Because of this she was often seen as the quiet one as anytime anyone walked past, she would always be the one quietly listening while the others went on about whatever had happened to them that day. Today was no exception. Once they had all listened to her and made sure Lana was alright, the group began chatting about what subjects they were looking forward to.

“Well I can’t wait until defence against the dark arts.” Lucy proclaimed. “You know me wanting to be an Auror and all.”

“we know Lucy.” Mandy said Nova back on her lap.

“You know Mad Eye Moody is taking it this year, I heard my parents talking about it.” Lana said joining the conversation.

“What!” Lucy yelled, causing Nova to jump off Mandy’s lap in fear, which then lead to Mandy giving Lucy the dirtiest look Lana had seen her give in a while. Once Nova was safely on Lana’s lap and Lucy had finally convinced Mandy to look her in the eye again, she continued.

“Mad Eye Moody as in the, Mad Eye Moody the world famous Auror?”

“No, the other Mad Eye Moody, you know the florist.” With that comment Lana had ‘the Standard Book of Spells: Grade 6’ flying at her head. She quickly ducked letting hit the wall with a loud thud before going back to the conversation.

“Yes, Mad Eye Moody the world famous Auror.”

“This year is going to be fun” Lucy said with a grin that Lana wasn’t sure she liked.

“My parents also said they were jealous of me, something about wanting to be here this year too.” Lana said offhandedly.

“Mine too.” Ava said sitting up. “And something about not expecting me for Christmas this year.”

“I wonder what’s going on?” Lana pondered.

“We’ll find out about an hour.” Sam said rubbing her temples. “So, can we not go on about it now.” She winced.

“Is your head acting up again?” Mandy asked looking worried. “Where is that cream Lana gave you?”

“In my trunk, I’m nearly out Lana by the way.” She said focusing her attention to the brunette

“Okay, I’ll ask Snape if I can use the potions room tonight, I’m sure he won’t mind” Lana said as Lucy reached up to overhead rack grabbing Sam’s trunk.

“Thanks.”

For as long as Lana knew her Samaria had always suffered with chronic Migraines, some off them weren’t so bad just a slight headache that she could brush off and continue with her day, but the bad ones were really bad. They usually made her vision blurry, her limbs stiff and if it was really bad, she would throw up anything she had eaten that day. There had only ever been two Migraines that had gone beyond that. One in the summer of their third year, when she had an excruciating pain on the right side of her head for seventy-two hours straight, and another in their fourth year where she tried to go on with her day not wanting to miss lessons and ended up fainting and almost falling down the stairs if Ava hadn’t caught her. Lana hated seeing her like that so all through the summer before their fifth year she worked nonstop in her room to make a magical cream that would automatically stop the symptoms. She managed it about two weeks before they came back and Sam had been better ever since.

After the cream had been found, and the contents of Sam’s trunk had been put back rather messily. Lana felt a little overwhelmed, so she decided to get her book out and just read for a bit.

She didn’t stop reading until the train started to slow down. She put her book back in her trunk, spent about five minutes trying to convince Nova to get back in his basket, said goodbye to him when finally did and went to join her friends at the train door  
She didn’t realise it was pouring with rain until she stepped off the train to get immediately soaked. She and the rest of her friends sprinted to the carriages. Once they were finally safe from the rain and going up the path towards the castle the girls relaxed laughing at how ridiculous they all looked. Lucy got the worst of it considering her curly blonde hair had puffed out. Their feeling of security did not last long as within ten minutes their carriage juddered to a holt and they all had to walk up the stair to the main doors of the castle

No one hesitated to get up there, they all ran like their lives depended on it. Lana only came close to slipping twice and each time she caught herself, but Mandy wasn’t as lucky she slipped and fell flat on her back with a painful thud Diane helped her up, and the group continued their trek up the stairs.

Once they were in the warm walls of the grand entrance, they thought they were safe. Oh, were they wrong. Peeves the poltergeist was floating above the students dropping water balloons on to a few unlucky students Lana ran through the hall trying her best to dodge them. All the while the sound of splashes followed by screams of anguish filled the room. The most notable one was Sam as blue balloon hit her dead in the head and showered her with water.

Professor McGonagall was just coming to sort Peeves as Lana entered the great hall. She looked behind her to see everyone but same unscathed. It only took five minutes for the group to burst into uncontrollable laughter. It was only when a big group of seventh years entered the great hall that they disbursed. Mandy and Sam heading off the Hufflepuff table, Lucy went over to the Gryffindors, Diane the Ravenclaws and Lana and Ava to the Slytherins.

Once Lana was safely settled in her seat, she began a conversation with Daphne Greengrass, a fourth year, about the latest copy of witch weekly until they were interrupted by her friend Pansy Parkinson. Lana had never really like Parkinson she was too full of herself and she had the most annoying laugh Lana had ever heard it was almost like a sniffle like when a dog sneezes. When Daphne had disappeared, Lana relaxed and let out a deep sigh, it was good to be back. Lana looked up to chat with Ava but saw that she to disappeared and upon further inspection found her down the table leaning over chatting with Alexus Longreen a girl in their dormitory. Alexus was a very pretty girl with long black hair and fair skin, but don’t let that pretty girl idea fool you Alexus was a cutthroat competitive quidditch player, even if she wasn’t allowed on the team.

Lana was pulled out of her gaze at her two dormmates by a hand grabbing her shoulder. She looked over to see Thomas Stevens Ava’s older brother. He was in his seventh year and very attractive and Lana, although she would never admit it to Ava, had a rather large crush on him. However, she wasn’t the only one, about every girl in Slytherin did, he hadn’t even said anything to Lana and already girls along the table were beginning to give her dirty looks. Lana smiled over at them spitefully, she was enjoying the attention.

“Hey Rowle, how was your summer?” Lana hated it when her called by her last name, so naturally he called her nothing but that.

“Very good thank you, and you?” she said sweetly trying to hide her nerves.

“Good yeah, bit boring without our riveting conversations.” He said sarcastically

“Hey, you started it on a dry subject, we both know are summers are never fun it’s like our parents outlawed it”

“you’ve got a point, so have you heard about the new DADA teacher?” He said his eyes glowing with excitement. Of course, he’d be excited Lana thought. Tom, as Lana called him, was desperate to become an Auror just to spite his formerly death eater parents, and Lana didn’t blame him, he and Ava’s parents were awful. They constantly went on about the dark arts and never really acknowledged their kids unless to shout at them.

Their conversation was interrupted by McGonagall entering the room with the first years in tow. They were all so small that Lana could barely see their heads over the table and the rest of her house. Although one did stick out to her, a tiny blonde boy who was completely soaked through and wearing Hagrid’s big overcoat. McGonagall placed the stool and sorting hat in front of the teachers table, and the whole school sat on the edge of their seat waiting. About thirty seconds later a rip in the hat opened and it began singing

A thousand years or more ago  
When I was newly sewn,  
There lived four wizards of renown,  
Whose names are still well known:

Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor,  
Fair Ravenclaw, from glen,  
Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad,  
Shrewd Slytherin, from fen.

They shared a wish, a hope, a dream,  
They hatched a daring plan  
To educate young sorcerers  
Thus Hogwarts School began.

Now each of these four founders  
Formed their own house, for each  
Did value different virtues  
In the ones they had to teach.

By Gryffindor, the bravest were  
Prized far beyond the rest;  
For Ravenclaw, the cleverest  
Would always be the best;

For Hufflepuff, hard workers were  
Most worthy of admission;  
And power-hungry Slytherin  
Loved those of great ambition.

While still alive they did divide  
Their favourites from the throng,  
Yet how to pick the worthy ones  
When they were dead and gone?

Twas Gryffindor who found the way,  
He whipped me off his head  
The founders put some brains in me  
So I could choose instead!

Now slip me snug about your ears,  
I've never yet been wrong,  
I'll have a look inside your mind  
And tell where you belong!

The whole hall burst into applause while, the first years just looked baffled. And with the last few claps dying down the sorting began. Lana didn’t really pay that much attention to the sorting she clapped when everyone else on the table did and that was about it. This was because about halfway through the sorting hats song she realised that Tom had sat down next to her and now she was just sat there stiff afraid to embarrass herself in front of him. Once the sorting was over Dumbledore said a few words and food appeared on the table and the feast began. The food was delicious Lana enjoyed every bite of what she was eating, the evening itself was just amazing everyone was chatting and Lana just felt so relaxed like she was at home again. Once she had finished her plate and the conversation topic changed, she did her usual thing of scoping out the first years to see who was nervous, who looked like they were going to need comforting in the common room and who was going to need to be protecting. She scouted out a few who looked like the normal type and then pointed them out to Alex who was a couple of seats down and he acknowledged what she was saying with a nod.  
After everyone had finished eating, Dumbledore got up to make his announcements. He stated with usual things like what Filch had decided to ban this year and that the forest was out of bounds. And normally that’s where he would stop but this time, he kept on going.  
“It is also my painful duty to inform you that the inter-house quidditch cup will not take place this year.”  
At this the room was filled with murmurs and a couple of disappointed shouts. Lana looked over to Alex to see him furiously talking with the team captain. Dumbledore continued to talk mentioning something about a different event taking place but Lana wasn’t listening she was staring at the doors a weird sense of foreboding running through her, as if something was about to come bursting through them, and funnily enough something or someone did. Mad eye Moody was there leaning on his staff. He walked up to the teachers table a string of gasps following him, he was quite a scary bloke. What with his matted grey hair, his magical eye and Lana swore he had a bit of his nose missing.  
Once he got to the teachers table, he reached out a hand and Dumbledore shook it muttering words Lana couldn’t hear. Once the conversation appeared to end Mad eye went to sit down and Dumbledore continued.  
“May I introduce our new defense against the dark arts teacher Professor Moody.”  
No one clapped.  
“As I was saying we have the honour of hosting a very exciting event over the coming months, an event that has not been held for over a century. It is my very great pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place at Hogwarts this year.”  
“YOU’RE JOKING!” Fred Weasley exclaimed. At this comment Lana like many others began to laugh.  
Dumbledore assured Fred he was not joking, started to tell a joke but was stopped by McGonagall and then began explaining the tournament to everyone and with every word he said Lana got more excited wondering if she should put herself forward. The hall was hanging onto Dumbledore’s every word silent until he mentioned something about an age limit of seventeen and the hall erupted with shouts of indignation the Weasley twins being the loudest. Lana sat there quietly knowing that her birthday was in two weeks and she would be able to enter.   
Dumbledore continued to say that the other two schools, Beauxbatons and Durmstrang, will be arriving in October and then sent them all to bed.  
As they all walked back to the dungeons the Slytherins were all chatting adamantly about who was going to enter there were so many people talking at once that Lana only heard a few snippets along the lines of.  
“I’m entering.”  
“I knew you would.”,

“This age ban is bullshit!”  
“It’s keeping us safe.”,

“I’m going for it.”  
“I don’t think the other houses would like a Slytherin champion.”  
“Well, fuck what they think I’m doing it.”

At that point they all reached the entry way; someone said the password and the all cambered in. everyone was too tired to stay and chat. They all went their separate ways. Once Lana was settled in her PJ’s, sat on her bed with Nova contently on her Lap the Triwizard conversations began.  
They were all about how would be so fun to enter and see the what the challenges would be like.  
“It’s a shame none of us can enter.” Dorothy “Dot” Parley sighed.  
“Yeah.” Alexus agreed.  
“Wait guys,” Kathrine the final girl in their dorm exclaimed making them all jump. “Lana is seventeen in two weeks she could enter!”  
“Oh, Lana you must!”  
“I might I’m not sure yet.” Lana said quietly  
“You have to, give Slytherin some pride.” Dot said excitedly  
“I’ll think about it, but we should probably get some sleep now.” Lana muttered  
And with that comment the five girls got into bed. The other four girls were asleep within minutes but Lana was laying there contemplating everything, only falling asleep when she got so tired she couldn’t keep her eyes open.


	7. The first day back

na’s first day back was eventful to say the least. It started with her waking up to find Nova two inches from her face purring calmingly. Once she had pushed him off, she looked to the clock on her bedside table and saw that it was ten past six in the morning. Most would off huffed and gone back to bed but Lana just thanked Nova for waking her up at the right time and went to get into the shower. Lana had always been a morning person even when she was little, she just like the quiet and peace of no one else being awake. She showered for about twenty minutes, dried and styled her hair and brushed her teeth. Her uniform was neatly placed on her bed so it was very easy for her to put on. Her skin looked a bit off that morning so she put a little make up on and by that point it had just gone seven, breakfast would start in about half an hour so Lana decided to just read for a bit. Lana was so captivated with the book she was reading she didn’t notice Tom sitting next to her and reading over her shoulder. This went on for about twenty minutes until she went to close her book and he spoke.

“Hey, I was reading that it was just getting good.” Lana laughed at the look of pure indignation on his face.

“Well if you let me finish it, I’ll give it to you so you can read the whole thing not just fifteen pages over my shoulder.” Lana suggested

“Okay, you were going way too quick for me anyway.”

“It’s settled then.” Lana said closing her book as if that small action finished the entire conversation. She placed the book in her bag and looked up to see Tom staring at her.

“What?” she asked seeming almost amused

“You just look cute today.” Lana could feel the blush running up her cheeks and down her neck.

“Thank you, I try.” She said sounding cool but she was definitely screaming on the inside. Tom let out the cutest little laugh that Lana had ever heard and began to talk again.

“So, I think breakfast might be ready now want to go together?” he said with so much energy that it made Lana feel tired.

“Yeah sure, but you can’t be that perky, even I’m not that much of a morning person.”

“Deal.” And with that the two stared their walk to the great hall. They didn’t talk about much just whether or not Tom was going to try and enter the tournament, he was, and how he was taking his N.E.W.Ts this year. The pace they were walking at suddenly sped up when Lana could smell fresh eggs, toast and coffee and made a b-line for the door dragging Tom behind her. The smell got stronger and stronger until she was in the hall. Once they got in there though some off Toms friends in year saw him and called him over. He looked at Lana apologetically.

“Go, I don’t mind.” She said hiding her upset. He gave her a grateful look and walked over to them. Lana noticed one off the pretty girls gesture for him to sit next to her and he obliged and they began chatting. A rather strong feeling of jealousy surged over Lana but she took a deep breath and continued as if she didn’t see anything. She scanned the room and saw that all her friends were still in bed. So, she sat alone and put some scrambled eggs on her plate with some hash browns and fruit. She poured herself some coffee, added some milk and began to eat. About ten minutes later Sam walked into the hall and Lana chocked on her coffee and let out a quiet “shit!”. In all the excitement off the tournament Lana totally forgot to make Sam’s cream for her head. Lana grabbed her plate and went over to the Hufflepuff table, she sat down next to Sam. She was greeted by a few other Hufflepuffs, and Sam just acknowledged her by resting her head on Lana’s shoulder and letting out a yawn. One by one the others came in, spotted them and sat down with them. The rest of breakfast slipped by quite pleasantly, they all got given their time table and began checking what lessons they have together. Lana had defence against the dark arts, with the Ravenclaws; a free lesson; herbology with the Hufflepuffs and double potions with the Gryffindors.

Lana and Lucy said their goodbyes and began to go back to their own table ready to catch any howlers from parents of first years who are unhappy with what house their kids got. Lana got back to her table, met up with Alex and they just waited. About five minutes later a swarm of owls came down from the ceiling. Lana looked between the owls headed towards to the Slytherin table to see if there were any red letters in the sea of white. She spotted a one and headed in the same direction as the owl carrying it, once she got to the kid, she could see the pure terror in his eyes. He began to speak but could barely get his words out.

“I-I don’t know what to do, I-I knew they would be unhappy, b-but I didn’t think they would this unhappy.” Lana almost felt herself melt.

“It’s okay Kid I got it.” she said reassuringly. She grabbed the howlers and began to do the incantation to stop it, the howler let out a tiny shriek and then disintegrated. Lana patted the first year on the back and went to check on Alex who was just dealing with one. When he spotted her Alex turned to look at her.

“Is that all of them?” she asked once he was in earshot.

“I think so I saw Ava grab one and that was it.” He said obviously out of breath, he must of ran to get to the howler he was dealing with.

The siblings said their goodbyes and headed off to their lessons. When Lana got to her classroom, she saw Ava and Diane waiting outside the door she went to join them. They began chatting about what this lesson would entail. They had yet to have a defence against the dark arts teacher to last a whole year so every year had been different. Moody opened the door and let the class in. The lesson itself was pretty normal he showed them the unforgivable curses on some spiders and then made them take notes about them from the text book, but Moody himself made it weird for Lana his personality just seemed off. Lana had met Moody a few times before when her father had taken her to the ministry and he had same sort of demeanour about him something just felt off about him Lana couldn’t put her finger on so she decided to leave it.

She spent her free lesson in the library reading up on the unforgivable curses. Then it was break and she and her friends decided to make the most of the still slightly warm September weather and go outside by the lake. Then Lana, Samaria and Mandy made their way towards the Greenhouses. Herbology was rather interesting, they were learning about all the different plants and what parts cure what illnesses. Lana already knew all of this as she wanted to be a healer, but she had only ever read about it so she loved seeing it in person. After Herbology it was time for lunch and Lana was starving she completely covered her plate in food and wolfed it down. They were sat at the Ravenclaw table and talking about exams Lana wasn’t really paying attention she was looking over at Tom at the Slytherin table laughing at someone’s joke. She was snapped out of her gaze by Ava hitting her round the back of the head.

“Hey!” She said indignantly. “What was that for?” she huffed.

“For looking at my brother like that.”

“Yeah, sorry, I’ll stop.” Lana said resurfacing from her daydream. Luckily Lucy was there to defuse the awkwardness.

“We should really get to Potions.” And with that the girls headed down to the dungeons.

Snape was being his usual bitchy self. He explained that only the best of the best got into this class and then gave a snide look towards Fred and George. To be fair Lana was a little confused as to how they got into this class but she wasn’t going to focus on it too much. Snape set them to work on a wound healing potion. Lana and Ava worked together on one and Lucy worked with Alicia Spinet. The lesson was uneventful, Lana and Ava finished first and Snape gave them a good mark on their potion. Lana took her chance will Snape was in a good mood to ask about using the potions room to make Sam’s cream he obliged letting her use it tonight. The lesson stayed uneventful until about ten minutes to the end when there was a loud explosion and Lana looked up to see Fred and George’s table covered with smoke. Snape was furious, he swept over to the table cleaned up the potion and began to stare the twins up and down, and began to speak in that cold voice that would terrify the shit out of anyone who heard it.

“Well, Weasleys you’ve outdone yourselves, you may of fluked your way into this class but at N.E.W.Ts I will not accept this kind of ignorance, you will have to start extra tutoring from another student if you ever want to succeed in this class, Miss Rowle would be a good fit, she is using this room tonight to concoct a cream for her friend I suggest you go with her and learn something for once.” And with that he stalked back to his desk and the students waited for the bell. Lana went over to the twins.

“Hey so for tonight does seven o’clock work?” she said timidly

“Yeah, that’s fine.” Fred said bluntly. This was going to be a long night.


	8. Chapter 8

It was five minutes to seven and after a bit of homework and a light dinner Lana was making her way down the potions room with all of the necessary ingredients for Sam’s cream in her bag. To say that she was apprehensive about this evening was an understatement. She was incredibly nervous about what could happen to the point of biting her nails despite managing to get it under control in her third year with the help of Lucy. And if you looked at her hands for a while you would be able to see them visibly shaking.

As we have already established, she and the Weasleys twins did not have a good track record. Hell, not just the twins apparently the whole family hated her. Ron and Ginny took up every opportunity to send her dirty looks, and her whole first year, the one she had shared with Charlie he had never seemed to like her. Percy on the other hand had always seemed fair, there were a couple of times where he had not been the nicest but after she became a prefect, he always seemed to respect her. And the twins were the twins they never seemed to leave her alone and now that she was going to be forced to spend an hour or two a week with just them, she would dread to think what could happen.

After a couple more minutes walking and pondering she had made her way to the main potions room and to her surprise she found the twins already standing at the door waiting for her.

“Lana, you’re here we were beginning to think you had forgotten about us.” George said enthusiastically as soon as Lana came into view.

“How could I have forgotten you I’m two minutes early.”

“No, you’re fifty-eight minutes late you said six.”

“No, I’m two minutes early I said seven.”

“I told you, she said seven!” Fred said exasperated.

“Wait have you guys have been waiting here for an hour, why didn’t you come grab me from the dining hall?”

“Look I’m not proud of it, I knew it started at seven,” Fred began, “but this one,” he gestured to George, “didn’t believe me and now I’ve missed dinner and I’m starving.”

“Ok well there’s still some food left in the main hall, so you guys go down and grab some while I set up.” Lana chuckles. With that the twins had rushed off to get some scraps of food and Lana began to set up. Lana absolutely loved the potions room she had done ever since she first set foot in it. It was a long and dark room with no windows and only painting, unlike the other classrooms that were filled with natural light and posters and paintings of all the big names of professionals of the particular subject. Lana much preferred the potions room it was less crowded and colourful and there was no natural light from the sun. Lana hated the sunlight in the classrooms, sure going out and getting some sun while relaxing on the field is always great and when it warms the grass on her morning and afternoon runs, she always gets a warm, fuzzy, calm felling in her stomach but when it came to lessons, she hated it. She hated how it got in her eyes, she hated how it warms you back because you are wearing all black robes and she hated how it streamed across the desks making light reflections everywhere and making it almost impossible to see the sheet in front of her. She’d always been like that ever since she was a kid her parents had always called her their little vampire.

Lana also loved the smells emanating from the room they were all so different and in Lana’s mind gorgeous. She loved how alive the room became when in use; how it was filled with different coloured smokes, how you could hear lots of different conversations about what ingredient should come next and “should it be making that sound”. However, the thing she loved most of all was it was her safe space her spot to come and just chill out, to do what she knew best, and right now she was in her element and ready to go 

First, she laid down all the ingredients and then lit the fire underneath the cauldron. She then sat and let the water boil and waited for the twins. But waiting often led to other thinking with Lana and now she was already questioning every part of that whole interaction. They seemed to be fine no insults, no hexes just Fred and George. After about fifteen minutes the twins returned arms filled to the brim with all kinds of food.

“Merlin where did you get all that from, when I left there were only small bits of food left.”

“Well we have our tricks.”

“Don’t be all coy George, we know how to get into the kitchens and the house-elves were more than happy to make us up some food.”

“That’s really cool, you will have to tell me that trick for when I’m hungry in the middle of the night, but anyway let’s get on with the tutoring.”

“Yes ma’am, what are we going to be doing today.” George said in a mock tone of efficiency like someone in the army Lana had half expected him to salute her, but he didn’t

She began to explain what exactly they were doing and once she was finished, she then began to explain what she had planned for the sessions as a whole.

“So, I was thinking of doing one week theory in the library and then one week practical in here and like alternating so you guys can get the basics and if you had any other questions about what we are learning in the lessons you can ask. To be honest I’m just glad I don’t have to fit all this around quidditch this year what with the tournament.” Lana trailed off as both the twins were staring at her. “What?”.

“Nothing its just you spent you whole summer last year trying to find a cure for your friend and now you take an hour or two out of you own time once a month to continue making it? that’s noble.” Fred said with so much shock in his words and expression that Lana wasn’t sure to be flattered or offended.

“Yeah well its nothing, if anything it’s just good practice for when I start my healer training, sorry if I start my healer training, I need to pass my NEWTs first and you know no guarantee.” Lana said fretfully

“I never knew you wanted to become a healer.” George commented offhandedly.

“Really!? My friends and brother would tell you I never shut up about it.” Lana paused “But then again we have never really had a full conversation, any interaction we had normally ends in a hex.” With this comment everything got a bit awkward and the twins started to look a bit guilty. Lana decided to continue on her little tangent mainly to fill the silence now forming in the room. “But I know what you guys wan to do once you get out of here, you want to start a joke shop, I hear you guys planning it in lessons. You’ve definitely got the minds for it you just need the grades but I guess that’s where I come in.” Lana trailed of feebly fiddling with the equipment as she spoke. “I know your mum doesn’t approve off all that, I heard you guys mention that too, but I think it’s brilliant. Ministry jobs are overrated unless you are going to enjoy them.” 

The twins just looked at her in a stunned silence as if they were trying to understand how such positive words could have come from a Slytherin. Lana was honestly quite proud of it; she had rendered the famous Weasley twins speechless. That would be something to tell her friends the next day.

“Anyway, shall we begin.”

And they did. Lana began to go through the process of making the cream taking the twins through each step and answering any questions although they were few and far between. The twins were mainly eating their food and taking in every word of what she was saying.

About halfway through Lana began to get hungry again after all her dinner had only been a light one after about fifteen minutes of suffering in silence too afraid to ask for a bit of food off the slowly dwindling pile of food Lana’s stomach decided it would do the job for her by giving out the loudest rumble it had ever given in her life. Lana looked down at it with almost a scolding look for ratting her out because as she was going a deep shade of Scarlett form embarrassment the twins were chuckling lightly. As soon as Lana noticed that she began to freak, oh god she just embarrassed herself in front of them things were going so well! And now they were going to make fun of her and tell all their Gryffindor friends and oh god her life was over again. Before she could finish her irrational spiral Fred cut in.

“You know if you’re hungry Rowle you can have something from that pile we didn’t just bring it all for ourselves.” And with that Lana looked over to the pile found a couple of cakes that took her fancy and silently summoned them over.

“Woah you know how to do nonverbal spells we only just started that.” George exclaimed with a sense of awe that made Lana blush.

“Yes well, when you wanted to be an healer ever since you were six and in St.Mungos with you five year old brother because he has a small case of dragon pox, and one of the healing assistants tells you that the ability to do nonverbal spells is highly regarded in the healer community you tend to start practising it as soon as you can get you hands on your own wand.” Lana explained “I didn’t get it until midway through second year though, took me ages but I was so happy when I made a feather fly round the common room without even uttering wingaruim-leviosa.”

Then they continued with Lana eating her cake and still explaining. It was bout half eight when they finally finished. Lana took the now pale white cream from the cauldron and spooned it into a small jar and sealed it.

“Right so same time next week?”

“Yeah sure.” Said Fred rather hastily before he rushed out the door. It didn’t take long for Lana to figure out why. Not ten seconds after he was out the door, she could hear him yelling after Angelina Johnson.

“So, he’s still pining after her then” Lana stated as she turned to George.

“Yeah.”

“Well he was a lot nicer than he normally was.”

“Yeah, well I did make him promise he would go easy on you, and I am sorry about all of that previous bullshit.”

“Don’t worry about it its natural for you know tension between my lot and yours.” Lana paused and looked at George for now she was seeing him in a full new light a much brighter light.” “Well I better get packed up, see you around.” She continued

“Yeah,” He was coming closer that was all Lana could notice. “and just so you know the way you’re going at the moment a career as a healer is almost certainly guaranteed.”

Lana was full force blushing now. “Thank you, your joke shop will be exquisite.”

“Cheers.” And just as soon as he had stepped closer, he had left.

Lana finished packing up her things, pocketed the small jar of cream and made a mental note to give it to Sam in the morning. She headed back to the common room, thinking about the whole night and the newly forming fuzzy feeling in her chest that should causing alarm but at this moment in time she didn’t care. 

Once in she looked around and found Alex say by the fire reading a book.

“Sup dork.” He said without even looking up.

“how did you know it was me?” Lana questioned

“I didn’t it’s just how I greet everyone.”

“Nice”

“So, have you given any thought to the tournament, I know you will be of age by the time the other schools get here, and I know mum and dad would highly approve of you entering.”

“Yeah well, I don’t think I should have to do everything just get Mum and Dad’s approval.”

Lana knew that this new statement was true, in fact there was a thing she was starting to want to do that her mother and father would definitely not approve off.


	9. Sunday September 18th 1994

Lana had had a peaceful few weeks just getting on with the mountains of school work she had received now that she was in the sixth year. But everything was still running smoothly, she and her friends still had time to chat and hang out even though most of it was in the library doing work together but Lana didn’t mind she enjoyed the company while working. The tutoring sessions were going quite well with alternating weeks. And although she would never admit it to another living soul, she was quite enjoying the twin’s company, they were honestly quite nice people when you got to know them deep down and you had broken down their walls. They were currently focused on this new idea called skiving snack boxes, in which the costumer would receive all different kinds of sweets that once eaten would give them just enough symptoms to get the out of the classroom and to madame Pomfrey, once in the hospital wing they would eat he counter sweet and it would be as if nothing was ever wrong and they could then have a full day of leisure without any lessons. Lana was honestly a little impressed by all of their schemes, and she liked how passionate the twins got about it any time they got onto the subject their faces would light up and Lana loved it.

Everything continued on as normal until Sunday September 18th rolled round. Lana dreaded September 18th with whole heart but every year it turned up and every year she had to face the fact that she was going to get a lot more attention than she normally did. September 18th was Lana’s birthday and this year she was seventeen. The day started out normal for Lana, she woke up ridiculously early and went for her morning run breathing in the cold September air and just letting her mind run wild. Once she got back to the dorm room all of her dormmates were still asleep so she decided to take her chance and jump in the shower for a good thirty minutes. About fifteen minutes into the shower Lana began to hear whispers coming from the dorm room but elected to ignore them until she had finished.

Once out the shower Lana checked the time it was still half seven and breakfast didn’t start until eight on weekends, so she decided to just put on comfy clothes for the morning instead of getting all dressed up. Another five minutes after she got out of the shower, Lana emerged from the bathroom in some plain grey joggers and one of Alex’s quidditch hoodies. Her magically dried hair had been loosely pulled into a curly bun and she was wearing grey fluffy socks. As soon as he had saw here Nova leapt off Lana’s bed and began to weave his way around her legs rubbing up against her feet affectionally.

Lana had barely made it into the room when.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!” screamed all the girls.

“Oh, Merlin thank you, but you guys didn’t have to go through all this.” Lana said as she looked around the group and the pile of presents at her bed.

“There from us and a couple of other people from the house.”

“The rest of the gang wanted to give you your presents at breakfast.” Ava piped up before the rest of the girls were forcefully sitting Lana down on her bed and showing the presents into her face.

Lana opened Kathrine’s present first. It was an old notebook once opened you could see it was text book covered in notes upon further inspection it tuned out to be Kathrine’s mother’s notebook from when she was a healer in training. Lana had adored Mrs Aldrin since the moment she met her at the end of her first year. She was in full uniform and upon hearing that Lana was interested in becoming a healer she talked her through her average day at work and Lana has always looked up to her ever since.

“Oh, this is amazing, Kathrine how did you get your mum to let you give this to me.”

“Well, she practically loves you more than she loves me and wanted you to have it.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, but thank you it’s amazing.”

Next was Alexus she got Lana a cute crop top with the weird sisters on it that Lana proceeded to put on and check out in the mirror while thanking her profusely. Dot had gotten her book called ‘The History of Magical Medicine’ With a gorgeous emerald green cover. Ava had gotten her some very stylish light blue running shoes that magically tracked your speed, steps and average heartrate. There were a couple of other presents from various people. Tom had gotten her a small snake charm bracelet that would weave around your thumb and put on calming pressure if you were stressed. The Malfoys had given her a very elegant ring with engraving in Latin that she would have to look up. Then there were her parents’ gifts, her parents always went all out on their kids’ birthdays. So, this year it was no surprise when Lana got a very extravagant set of dress robes that were in a lovely shade of lilac. She also got a beautiful necklace with an emerald in it, it also came with a note which was unusual, she always got a general letter from them on her birthday but never a separate note for one of the gifts. It read

Dear Alana,

This necklace has been passed down in the women of my family for generations, always on the seventeenth birthday, you may have seen me wearing it. Well now it is your turn. It is a staple to my family, wear it proudly you may have been born into in to the Rowle family but you will always be a Black in heart.

P.S you may find the necklace more useful than you might think

Mum.

Lana read the note over a couple of times pondering the final line, Her mother had always established that she had been a Black and as the years went on she associated with the family less and less, what with two of them in Azkaban, some had been blood traitors and the rest had married off to different names so it had basically died out.

“Right we should head down stairs for some breakfast and to meet up with everyone.” Said Alexus. And so, they did Lana chucked a pair of black boyfriend jeans on her legs and left on the crop top but put the jumper back on because it was cold. While everyone else was busying themselves, Lana slipped down stairs putting the necklace on as soon a she did it began to heat up and then there was a pillow in her face. Once she had established to herself that it was just a pillow and not in fact a deadly hex as she had first though as it collided with her face, Lana looked up to see Tom sat on the sofa crying with laughter.

“Sorry,” he said in short breaths, “I wanted it to go past your head not hit you in the face.”

“Yeah, ok” Lana said in an accusing tone.

“No, I swear.” Tom said still chuckling to himself. “Happy birthday, did you like what I got you?”

“Oh, the bracelet yeah, it’s gorgeous.”

“You want to head down to breakfast together?” He asked

“Yeah sure, let’s go.”

As they were walking down to the dinning hall Lana ad Tom starting talking about the tournament again.

“Who do you think will be the Hogwarts Champion?” started. “My bets are on me, you or that Diggory kid in Hufflepuff.”

“My thing is even if I want it, and I do, no one else will, imagine the out roar if Hogwarts had a Slytherin champion.”

“Yeah, but imagine the glory you would bring the house is one of us won. Honestly though I just think that Dumbledore and all that lot are upset that Potter is only 14, they would love to have their golden boy as the Hogwarts Champion.” Tom joked.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Potter manged to wriggle his way into it, that kid always find a way to get himself into the limelight.”

“True.”

Once they made it down to the Great Hall, Lana and Tom went their own separate ways. Lana went to all her friends who had situated themselves at the Gryffindor table and Tom went over to his Slytherin friends.

Lana had barely made her way over the table when all of the girls started squealing.

“Okay, okay Merlin I get it I’m a year older no need to lose your minds.”

“Oh, come on Lana lets us have this, it’s the one. It’s the one time of year you let us spoil you.” Mandy wined

“Christmas?”

“That doesn’t count we all spoil each other equally.”

“Okay, right let’s do this.” Said Lucy while banging her fist on the table.

The presents Lana got from the girls were amazing. Diane had gotten her a new potions book with 150 new recipes to help detox herself. Lucy got her a pair of joggers with her favourite Quidditch team, the Holy Head Harpies, down the leg. Mandy got her some lavender, mint and basil house plants that she could keep in her room to brighten it up, but she could also harvest the leaves for potion ingredients. And finally, Sam who got her a delightful scarf that change colour to match whatever outfit she wore.

After long conversations about what they were going to do for the day and many, many thankyous Lana made her way over to where Alex was sitting with his friends. Admittedly Lana would hate it if Alex came over and embarrassed her in front of her friends but she sat down next to him, took some beacon off his plate and ruffled his hair anyway.

“That’s my Jumper.” 

“Deal with it.” With that comment Lana got a couple of sniggers from his friends.

“Happy birthday.” Said Alex as he handed over his present.

“Thankyou.”

Lana opened the box and inside was a tiny knitted jumper that said ‘practically purrrfect’. Once it was in view All of Alex’s friends burst into laughter.

“Really.” Lana retorted. “Well if you think you’re clever you’re not because frankly I love this and I can’t wait to see Nova in it.

“Yeah, the sad part is I knew you would say that, but I did get you these.” And with that he pulled out a small box neatly wrapped in silver wrapping with a golden bow on top. It was so beautiful Lana was scared to open it.

“Go on then open it, I know the wrapping is beautiful I worked hard on it but open it.”

So, she did and when she did it revealed a gorgeous pair of lilac earrings. “Alex these are beautiful.” Lana exclaimed. “There in my favourite colour and everything.”

“And they are made to match the dress robes you got, mum and I coordinated it together.”

“I love them.” Lana pulled Alex into a bone crushing hug and they sat there for a minute hugging enjoying each other’s company.

“Right I better get going, I’m going to walk around the lake a bit and go read for a bit.” Said Lana while getting up. “Catch you around.”

“Okay you loner.”

“Hey! I have lots friends.” Lana rebuked while smacking him round the head, and out the great hall she went stopping by the Gryffindor table to say goodbye to her friends.

As she left, she passed Potter, his friends, the twins and a couple others. She didn’t hear much all she heard was one of the Weasleys say. “The Rowle girl, she’s a nasty piece of work but I mean all Slytherins are what do you expect for someone from that family.” The next thing Lana knew she was speed walking out of the room and holding back tears.

Everything was blur and the next thing Lana knew she was outside by the lake silently crying. However, she only got around five minutes to wallow in her depressing solitude before someone was calling after her. It was a guys’ voice so it couldn’t be one of her friends, it sounded nothing like Alex nor Tom but it did sound familiar. She turned around to see George Weasley holding some kitchen roll in his hand.

“What do you want Weasley” She called over to him in a cold tone.

“Just, checking if you’re okay,” he said almost breathless he had obviously run to catch up with her, “I’m guessing you heard Ron by the way you walked out of the Hall.”

“Wow, nothing gets past you.” She snapped. George said nothing just put his hands up in surrender.

“Look, I’m sorry about Ron but you have to understand that whatever he says probably doesn’t matter, just ignore him trust me I have ever since he was born.” That warranted a laugh from Lana.

“Thanks,” she sniffed, “what have you got there?.” She asked.

“Oh,” George said as he unwrapped the kitchen roll. To reveal two slices of the most gorgeous birthday cake. “Couldn’t help but notice that while sat at the Gryffindor table that you were receiving lots of presents, which can only mean one thing. It’s your birthday.”

“Good work detective.”

“Detective?” George questioned.

“They’re like the muggle version of Aurors, I saw it in some muggle movie Mandy made me watch.” Lana explained

“Cool, anyway cake, tuck in.” Lana obliged; it was absolutely delicious. The flavours just melted in her mouth and the texture was amazing.

“Merlin this is delightful,” Lana moaned with a mouthful cake, “which means you possibly couldn’t have made it yourself so where did you get it.” She continued sceptically.

“I got it from the house elves, they are little godsends sometimes.”

“I see.”

They continued walking and talking for a bit mainly quidditch but occasionally they would slip off to joke shop ideas. It was pleasant to say the least Lana was really beginning to enjoy Georges company a lot he was nice to talk to, really understanding and really cute. Wait no abort! Abort! Lana couldn’t think of him that way, she couldn’t, but she was and she was really enjoying it and she really shouldn’t.

“You still with me Rowle you spaced out there for a minute.”

“Yeah sorry, just school.” She said snapping out of her spiral and looking up at him because he was just so dammed tall, but he was also gentile and sweet and incredibly attractive and- oh Merlin she was doing it again. She needed to get out of there and fast.

“I’m going to head off, catch you around.” And with that she turned around and left a very confused George as she headed to the common room.

After she had safely made it back into the common room, she wanted to head up to her dormitory grab some book and read for a bit, but she’d only made it halfway across the room when.

“So, how was your depressingly lonely birthday stroll around the lake.” Came the teasing voice of Alex. Lana looked up, found him, saw that he was alone and sat down next to him.

“It was fine and I’ll have you know I wasn’t alone I had a boy with me.” She said defensively.

“Ooh, spill.” Alex said putting his book down.

“There’s nothing to spill. There’s only problems.”

“How? you just had a romantic stroll around the lake with a cute guy on your birthday, how could any problems have a risen from that?”

“Because the guy in question is George Weasley.” Lana shout-whispered.

“Yeah, that isn’t good.” Alex winced. “Mum and Dad will kill you if they find out.”

“I know” Lana whined. “But he’s so nice, he found out it was my birthday he brought me cake from the kitchens, and he listens to me and I don’t know what to do.”

“Right, keep things going don’t close off your options, but play it safe, you never know what bitch in here could be listening and you know what this lot are like one slip up and they are writing a letter to their parents ratting you out cause everyone knows everyone in the pureblood community.” Alex whispered, with his game face on. “Cause if he is a genuine guy, who is really nice, don’t give a fuck what mum and dad think, jump on that.

“You’re right.”

“I do tend to be.”

“Oi, shut up I’m trying to be nice to you here.”

“Alright sorry. Now go read you’re boring book.” Alex said relaxing back into his seat.

“I would like to point out that you were reading a book when I got here.” Lana said as she got up and went up to her dorm room. She heard a faint piss off from Alex as she went up the stairs.

Once in the dorm room Lana settled down in her bed and got her book out and just got sucked in. At some point Nova came in from wherever he was and snuggled into her lap and began to purr. Lana found herself in a nice sense of calm. Everything would be fine, wouldn’t it?


	10. Domestic Mornings

The weeks dragged on as September changed to October and Lana was starting to feel the pressure of being in sixth year. It had been like someone had flicked a switch and now everything was ten times more serious than it had been before.

Some people like Dianne had taken well to the pressure and were still thriving like nothing was wrong, however some people were starting to crack under the strain of it all, Mandy being one of them. A couple of weeks after Lana’s birthday, right after a very stressful transfiguration lesson where Mandy was one of the few people who hadn’t been able to turn her teacup into a hamster, Lana had found Mandy hidden away on the outskirts of the forest tending to the Blast Ended Screwts with Hagrid and although she looked content Lana could tell she had been crying.

Mandy had always loved care of magical creatures; she excelled at it and was probably going to look into careers in it. And honestly Lana hoped she did, Mandy was just about the only person who was as crazy about animals as Hagrid, she had openly fawned over the Screwts whilst Lana and the rest of the group took several steps back every time one of them so much as moved in their direction.

Lucy was also struggling; she and her mother were convinced that she had this muggle thing called dyslexia but Lana had no idea what that meant except that it made reading more difficult. Everyone else seemed to be doing fine and if they weren’t, they weren’t showing it. Even the twins had made massive strides in their potion making and the lessons were going quite well. At one point in the first week of October Snape had peered into the twin’s cauldron and stated that it had been the first time he had seen a good concoction from them, and the look the twins had given Lana was one of the cutest things that Lana had seen in a while. 

It was the last Sunday of October and Lana was the first up but this time it was at two in the morning. Lana was having a rough night, which was very abnormal for her she usually slept very well but there were these few occasions where her brain would overload and she would be awake for hours. She had gone to bed at about ten the night before and had fallen asleep within half an hour but every twenty minutes she would wake up suddenly and out of breath. So, at around one Lana decided to just give up and go read a book in the common room. Nova has been asleep on her bed when she left but he must have felt her presence disappear as not ten minutes after she had sat down, he came from down the stairs and curled up on her lap contentedly. And there they sat in perfect harmony uninterrupted until

“Oh, Jesus Rowle you scared me I wasn’t excepting anyone else to be up.” Came the sharp voice of Draco Malfoy.

“Sorry Malfoy, but in my defence, neither was I.” They both just stayed still for a second before Lana took a closer look at Malfoy and saw that his eyes were blotchy. “Hey, are you okay?” she asked gently.

“What?” He asked panicked. “Oh, yeah I’m fine honestly, just parent pressure” He explained evidently realising how he must look.

Lana decided to not pry any further, “you know what you need,” she stated as she patted the sofa indicating for him to sit, “you need a bit of cat therapy and I’m sure Nova will be happy to oblige he can sense upset and knows how to calm it.” Draco stood there thinking about it before he finally sat and let Nova curl up on him and purr softly into his chest. They sat there quietly for about half an hour Lana reading her book and Draco absentmindedly stroked Nova. The calm silence was interrupted by Draco striking up a conversation about the tournament.

“Are you going to enter the tournament, because I know Stevens is entering and if you do to then Slytherin has a high chance of having the Hogwarts champion come from our house and Merlin knows we need the pride, what with Gryffindor winning the house cup the past few years.”

“I don’t know yet, probably, but I get your point, to be fair though we always tend to come a close second, and we should win it’s just that Dumbledore is so biased to Potter and the Gryffindors, like that time in your first year when he gave Potter and his friends just enough points to beat us after they broke just about every rule the Hogwarts rule book has, its bullshit like that, that means we don’t get the recognition we deserve.” Lana didn’t know how it happened but somehow the monologue slipped off her tongue, it was clearly something she had had pent up for a while. She looked to Draco fearing that she might have come on a bit strong, however he was nodding along very enthusiastically.

They stayed chatting for a little while longer. It was mainly Lana giving Draco advice about what to do when his OWLs came up, but overall it was a highly enjoyable experience for them. It was only when the clock, on the wall above the desks in the left-hand corner of the common room was nearing quatre to three that Lana began to feel really tired, she tried to stifle a yawn but Draco caught her.

“Hey, if you’re tired you can go to bed, I’m fine here.” He said calmly, still stroking Nova. “As long as I can keep Nova for a bit, I’m growing fond of him.”

“Go for it, he’s definitely warmed up to you, considering what happened last time.” Lana winced at the memory of Nova scratching Draco on the leg, at the start of last year.

“Lets leave that in last year shall we, now go to bed you look shittier than me and that’s saying something.”

“Alright I’m going see you later.” Lana said yawning again.

Lana began to make the trek back up to her dorms really beginning to feel the exhaustion. She had barely made it on to the bed before falling into a deep sleep.

Lana didn’t wake up until ten in the morning, and all of her dormmates were gone, leaving the dorm peaceful and quiet. She stayed curled up in her blankets letting the warmth consume her, she would’ve stayed there for another hour or two but her stomach began to grumble and the fact that she hadn’t eaten in over twelve hours really began to settle in. So, she forced herself out of bed and into the shower. About forty-five minutes Lana was sat with her group on the Hufflepuff table.

“I just don’t see why I have to do a 3 roll essay on the guy, like what’s so special about Nerd Sandwicher anyway?” Lucy was complaining as she stuffed her face with her second bacon roll. “I swear he just tamed a few animals in New York like what’s the biggie.” She finished.

“Newt Scamander, is a highly respected wizard zoologist,” Mandy corrected her, “he made several amazing discoveries and is a living legend.”

Lana was finding all of this hysterical as Mandy was genuinely getting angry at Lucy’s lack of respect for someone she clearly idolises, when the subject changed to a notice that had come up in all the common rooms.

“So, did everyone see the big notice this morning?” Sam said excitedly.

“Oh my God yes I’m so stoked hopefully the French girls are really hot.” Lucy said wistfully.

Lana, who had rushed down to the hall to ensure she got some food had completely missed the notice, sat there not understanding a word of what they were saying.

“What notice?” she asked.

“You didn’t see it?” Dianne laughed. “it took up half of the Ravenclaw notice board, was it not that big on the Slytherin one?” She directed the last question at Ava who gave a look of pure smugness at Lana and began to speak.

“No, it was,” She said smoothly hiding her laughter, “Its just Lana is kinda oblivious to stuff around her especially when she’s hungry.”

“Okay can we stop making fun of me and actually tell me what going on, I’m guessing it’s about the tournament?” Lana said although she was laughing along with the rest of the girls.

“We could.” Mandy piped up with a sly look on her face, “Or you walk all the way back to your common room and find out for yourself.” She finished. Lana looked round to see the rest of her friends nodding with the same look on each of their faces.

“Wow,” began stifling a laugh, “I see how it is, and I thought I was the Slytherin jeez.” She turned round and saw the Weasley twins at the Gryffindor table with the Golden trio, as the student of Hogwarts had dubbed them, and made her decision instantly.

“Fine then I’ll go talk to my friends at the Gryffindor table I’m sure they’ll be nicer than you.”

“You can’t possibly be talking about the weasel twins.” Ava said dubiously as Lana began to get up from her seat.

“So, what if I am.” Lana said dismissively leaning over Mandy. “their actually kinda nice.” She said not realising how fond she sounded.

“Oh Merlin, she’s complimenting Gryffindors, some check her temperature.” Mandy said in a tone of mock panic. She put a hand up to Lana’s forehead.

“Piss of.” Lana laughed as she slipped form Mandy’s reach and headed to the Gryffindor table.

She plopped herself in between George and his friend Lee.

“Hello,” he said looking down at her with a fond look on his face.

“Hi, so apparently there was a big notice on all of the bords today and I missed it, and now all of my friends,” she gestured to the Hufflepuff table where all of her friends were watching them intently, “are refusing to tell me what’s going on, so do you know?”

“Oh yeah, basically the other two schools are arriving on Friday so we get to finish two lessons early.”

“Oh sweet, I have ancient runes then and now I get whole extra weekend to finish my essay.”

“Who’s this Slytherin chick George?” A cold voiced piped up, “Is she your girlfriend? Because mum will hate that.” Lana looked up to see Ron Weasley glaring over at her.

“So, what if she is?” Lana felt herself being pulled by the waist towards George, he put his arm around her like they were a couple and gave Ron a look, “you’re just jealous because you could never get a girl to like you.” Everyone including Lana began to laugh, but Lana was a bit more subdued as she was taking in what George was wearing; it was a pair of soft joggers and one of his quidditch jumpers. This made him feel incredibly soft and warm and Lana’s emotions were going haywire. Her stomach was filled with butterflies and her heart was going to fast for her brain to keep up, George Weasley had just pulled her into his side and was cuddling into her, in public! Lana began to realise that this definitely looked like they were in a relationship and she knew that her family reputation meant that she could not be seen like this. So, she slipped herself free and turned to Ron.

“Don’t worry Ron I’m just his potions tutor because Professor Snape doesn’t think that he’s up to the standard of the rest of the class.” She said coolly.

“Oh” Ron laughed.

“Hey, you tutor me and Fred,” George said putting a lot of emphasis on the ‘and’, “and you said that I was making massive improvements.”

“You really are and I’m very impressed,” Lana reassured him, “but you have to admit if Snape hadn’t made me tutor you, we would be talking to each other right now.”

George nodded begrudgingly and Fred decided to join the conversation,

“Speaking of potions can you look over my essay tomorrow so I can make sure it’s perfect?”

“Sure!” Lana said cheerily. She looked over to her friends to see them beckoning her frantically.

She began to speak. “I better head off, my friends are…” but she was cut off by a voice a few seats down.

“Hey, you’re Alexander Rowle’s sister aren’t you,” Lana turned to see a third year girl leaning over her friends, “any chance you can get me a date with him, he’s so dreamy,” she giggled to herself. Lana could sense the energy coming off this girl and she did not like it, she began to speak without even really thinking.

“Hey, listen I don’t know who you think you are, but let me tell you, that you have about has much of a chance with my brother than that cat does,” and she gestured to the stuffy, squished-faced cat on Grangers lap, “so, why don’t you sit back down, get your hormones in check and never speak to me again.” Lana watched as the girl sunk back into her seat quietly as the others stared at her with mixed looks of confusion and adoration. “Right, as I was saying I better head off I’ll see you guys around.” She waved at them sweetly and started to head back to her friends when Lee called out to her.

“Hey Rowle, I like you come sit here whenever you want.”

“Thank you Jordan I’ll keep that in mind.”


	11. The Arrival

The rest of Lana’s week flew by, and before she knew it, she was sitting in McGonagall’s classroom finishing up her last few questions of the day. Lana had about two minutes to pack up her stuff before the bell went.

“Now, students if you could please return your belongings to your dormitories, and then proceed to the front of the castle thank you.”

The students all bustled out into the corridor that looked a lot cleaner than it had done the week before. The paintings had all been scrubbed leaving inhabitants looking very disgruntled, the floor was so shiny that you could see the outlines of the bodies walking along it and the suits of armour sparkled in the sunlight. Clearly the teachers wanted to make a good impression on the two new schools.

They weren’t the only ones. As Lana made her way to the front of the castle after she had disposed of her bag, she noticed that a lot of the girls had curled their hair at put a bit more effort in their makeup. Clearly, they hoped that tis would get them some attention from the Durmstrang and Beauxbatons boys.

“I mean there is hardly any good-looking boys here so I might as well look elsewhere.”

“Yeah, I mean what’s the point of having them here if I we only stick to Hogwarts boys.”

Lana shook her head and craned her neck to try and find her friends but couldn’t see any sign of them. She kept trying until she heard her name called.

“Hey, Rowle over here!”

Lana turned to see Tom standing a few feet away from her. He was beckoning for her to join him.

She obliged and fiddled her way through the crowd to join him. Once she reached him, she realised the he was stood on one of the stone windowsills of the court yard and was therefor getting a much better view.

“Oi, help me get up there!”.

Tom looked down at her, sighed and grabbed her wrist, pulling her up. Once she was up, she lost her balance and began to slip, Tom noticed this and put his arm around her waist to stabilise her. Normally this would make her blush, but today she barely noticed.

“So, are you entering your name?” He asked.

“Yep.” Lana said craning her neck to see what was going on

“Me too, I guess that means we’re competitors.” Tom joked.

Lana thought for a moment and then began to speak.

“Alright then let’s make this interesting.”

“How do you mean?” Tom looked her quizzingly 

“Well, there are three possibilities; one I get in and you don’t, two you get in and I don’t or three neither of us get in.”

Tom nodded to indicate that he was following what she was saying.

“So, let’s make it interesting if option one happens you give me ten galleons, if option two happens I give you ten galleons and if option 3 happens then we both get to keep our money.” Lana finished looking up at him. He thought for a moment and then spoke

“Alright I’ll take that bet.”.

They shook hands to officiate the deal and then Snape began to speak. 

“Slytherins in an orderly line, first years on the front seventh years in the back.” Lana and Tom waved at each other before headed of to a group of his seventh-year friends.

Lana scanned the crowed as she headed to the sixth-year line trying to spot Ava, she found her nestled between Dot and Alexus. Once she got over to her Alexus moved over to make room smiling at Lana. Ava turned around to Lana giving her a funny look

“What were you and my brother talking about.” She asked coyly

“Oh, just setting a bet, y’know about the tournament.” Lana said not picking up on Ava’s tone.

“Okay.” Ava said even less subtle than the last time. Lana finally cottoned on to what she was trying to say.

“Hey, look I’m not into him, I would never date your brother.” She hastened. 

“I don’t mind, I mean Merlin knows our parents are probably planning an arranged marriage between you two.” Ava joked, Lana laughed but thought about that statement for a moment and realised that considering the family relationships are and that arranged marriages are common in pureblood she and Tom are highly likely to end up in an arranged marriage. She decided to brush off the thought for the moment. “That’s fair.”

They stayed there wating on the slowly darkening grounds chatting and bouncing on the ball of their feet for warmth when a first year piped up. “Ooh, its nearly six, they’ll be here soon”. So naturally everyone began to peer around the grounds for any sign of movement. It was silent for another couple of minutes until Dumbledore spoke from the back row with the rest of the teachers

“Ahah, unless I’m very much mistaken the delegations from Beauxbatons approaches.”

There were choruses of where from the students, and Lana looked up to see a large object moving into her eyeline. Upon further inspection she could see that it was a large dusty carriage that was being pulled by a set of the most magnificent winged horses Lana had ever seen.

“Oh, that’s beautiful.” Lana let the whispered words slip off her tongue without even thinking.

The carriage started to come closer and closer to the point that the first few rows had to take several steps back which lead to Neville Longbottom stepping on Alex’s toes

“Ow, watch it.”

“sorry.” He squeaked.

The coach landed with a sickening crunch and an incredibly tall women stepped out. She had her hair slicked back in a bun on the back of her neck and she was dresses in all black satin, and Lana was really starting to take in how tall this woman was. She was bordering on Hagrid levels of big. She only needed to takes five steps before she reached Dumbledore who kisses her hand and greeted her gratuitously

“My dear Madame Maxime, welcome to Hogwarts.”

“Dumbledore, I hope I find you well.” She said in a thick French accent

“On excellent form, I thank you.”

“My pupils,” she gestured back to the group of students making their way out of the carriage they looked as cold as the Hogwarts students felt, some just had wrapped their arms around themselves, others had made headscarf’s and shawls out of their robes.

“Has Karkaroff arrived yet?” Lana turned her attention back to Maxime.

“He should be here any moment.” Dumbledore stated. “Would you like to wait and great him or would you prefer to step inside and warm up a trifle?” he asked.

“Warm up I think.” She said, she turned towards the carriage. “but the horses”

“Our care of magical creatures’ teacher will be delighted to take care of them, the moment he has returned for a slight situation that has arisen from some of his other charges.”

Lana knew instantly that this meant the screwts. Maxime started to say something else but Lana was starting to zone out, she was getting very cold and rather tired.

She was pulled out of her trance when Madame Maxime called out for her students to enter the castle, they followed as the Hogwarts students split the let them through. This caused a whole mess and when the students realigned themselves Lana realised that she had been moved to the end of the Slytherin line and right next to one of the Weasley twins who started the Gryffindor line.

“Hello Lana.” He said, Lana didn’t hear him at first because she was trying desperately to figure out which one, she was talking to as it was too dark for her to tell.

“Lana?... come in Lana.” They said and Lana was snapped back.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, you’re going to hate me, but I have to ask, which twin are you?”

Whichever twin it was gave and over the top look of mock offence and put a hand to his chest.

“Honestly you’d think that after all the time we spent together you’d know how to tell us apart.” Lana was going red she turned to Ava for help, but she looked terrified, she obviously had not warmed up to the twins as much as Lana had.

“You hear this Freddie; Lana still can’t tell us apart.” George, as Lana had now realised, called to his twin who was a few people down.

“Hey! In my defence it is dark.” Lana defended her face all scrunched up.

“I didn’t know you guys were friendly with Rowle.” Piped up Alicia Spinet coldly, “I though she just tutored you guys potions every once and a while.” She looked at George scathingly as if it was a bad thing, they were friendly.

George looked very fretful; he was about to speak when Lee spoke over him.

“Yeah, but don’t worry she’s cool.” He said casually.

“I’ll believe it, when I see it.” Spinet said folding her arms.

Lana wanted to sink into the ground, she searched the line for Lucy but she was several people down and couldn’t hear any of what was going on. Lana was saved anymore embarrassment when Ava began to speak.

“Can you hear that?” Lana turned away from the Gryffindors.

“No what is it?” but just as she said that the noise reached her ears it was earie almost like a vacuum cleaner, it was building and building, until out of nowhere Lee stated to yell.

“The lake! Look at the lake!” everyone turned their heads and out of nowhere a whirlpool appeared and large ship rose out of the water. It looked a bit like a ship that had been recked and then restored. It was thing and shinning in the pale moonlight. Students everywhere were gasping and craning their necks to see. It took a good few minutes for the ship to dock and for everyone to disembark. Lana leaned a little bit to get a better view of them, and all she could say was that those girls had gotten what they wanted. They students, who were now making their way up to the castle were all wrapped up in cloaks but from what Lana could see of their faces told her that they were all very attractive. The head made his way up to Dumbledore and Lana recognised him instantly Igor Karkaroff. She new him as he was an old friend of her fathers from his past death eater days. He and Dumbledore began to talk but Lana was getting too cold to notice, she was starting to shiver uncontrollably. George clearly sense all of the movement coming off Lana and looked down.

“You alright Rowle?” he asked with the slightest bit of concern etched on his face.

“Yeah, I’m fine just c-c-cold” Lana could stop the big shiver that came over her body so stammered on the last word.

“Here,” he said kindly and he draped his cloak over her, Alicia gave Lana the dirtiest look. But Lana did not care she wrapped herself up and just enjoyed the warmth. She looked up to see George looking down at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

“What?” She asked still feeling Alicia’s eyes on her. Lana could not handle him being anymore romantic with her now, not with a girl who clearly had a crush on him staring her down.

“Nothing, it’s just you look really small like that.” Lana could’ve cried from relief.

“I’ll have you know that I’m average hight, you’re just freakishly tall.” Lana was glad that the conversation was staying casual and was really enjoying it.

They fell into a calm silence, until Ava let out a very audible gasp and pointed to midway down the path.

“I don’t believe it!”

“What?” Lana looked over to where Ava was pointing and there he was Krum, the seeker that had just lost the quidditch world cup. Lana would never have guessed that he was still young enough to go to school. He was tall and burly, he had jet black hair and a 5 o’clock shadow. Lana (and practically everyone else on the front field) followed him with her eyes as he made his way up to the two head masters at the main entrance of the school. They had a short conversation before heading inside.

Once Karkaroff and Krum were safely inside Dumbledore gestured for the rest of the Hogwarts students to follow.


	12. The Goblet of fire

It was the next morning and Lana was rudely awoken by something soft but heavy hitting her in the head. Knowing it was probably just one of the girls pillows she stayed in her relaxed state thinking back to the night before. It wasn’t that eventful in her opinion all that had happened was that the way the champions were going to be picked was announced. It was going to be this goblet that would pick out a student from each school, it was also established that there would be an age line around the goblet to ensure no-one under the age of seventeen could get over it. This was nothing to get Lana upset, as it had done for many people, as she knew that she would be able to walk over that line with no problem. However, minus the boring speech about rules and regulations of the tournament the evening had been rather fun. The Durmstrang students had sat with the Slytherin students and were actually really nice. Lana and this one guy who she had never caught the name of had an in-depth discussion about a band that they both liked. The conversation always stayed light and fun and Lana loved it.

“Come on Rowle, get up.” A voice called, “You’re normally the first one up.” Lana couldn’t identify the person just from her voice but she obliged nonetheless.

“I’m up, I’m up.” She groaned sitting up to she Dot at the other end of the room. Nova jumped on her lap and Lana began to stoke him absentmindedly.

“So, what did you think of the Durmstrang students?” Dot asked as she folded up her blankets.

“They were alright.” Lana said as she got up and chucked on a lilac jumper and a pair of her black leggings.

“Well, I was talking with this one guy and she seemed really into me, like really into me and we really hit it off and I’ve promised him that next Hogsmeade trip I’ll show him around.” Dot said this in a would-be cool voice but Lana could tell that she was over the moon about this. As gorgeous as Dot was Alexus and Kathrine tended to get most of the attention from the guys and this was finally her chance.

“Dot that’s amazing! Is he cute?”

“So cute.”

“Well that settles it he’s your new boyfriend.” This warranted a giggle from Dot and for her to go rather red. She was really happy and Lana couldn’t be more excited for her.

After that conversation ended Lana made her way down to the great hall for some breakfast. She couldn’t see any of her friends, Ava had still been sound asleep while Dot and Lana had been chatting so Lana knew that she wouldn’t be there but she was surprised that none of the others were up.

Lana scanned the Slytherin table and found Tom sat with a few of his friends. They all seemed to be ones Lana could tolerate so she started to make her way over, when a voice called her from the other end of the room.

“Hey, Rowle come sit over here a minute.”

Lana turned to see Lee Jordan beckoning for her to sit with that group. Not knowing what was going on she turned away from Tom and made her way down to the Gryffindor table.

“Morning” she said in a confused tone as she sat down in-between Lee and Fred with George opposite her. She grabbed a plate and began to add some pancakes and fruit to it. The conversation seemed to be the Twins and Lee trying to figure out how to get over the age line, and Granger just trying to get them to accept that they are too young to enter.

“So, Rowle the twins here tell me that you’re a bit of a potions genius.” Lee said putting a hand on Lana’s shoulder.

“I wouldn’t say genius, just good at it.” Lana said shrugging off Lee’s hand so she could take another bite of her pancakes.

“Stop being modest you literally top the class every lesson, didn’t you get 100% on the last test?” Angelina Johnson piped up. “Sorry to interrupt I just really want you to straight up tell them that their plan is stupid.”

“I mean yeah.” Lana said smiling at Angelina, “So what’s this plan you’ve got?”

Fred lit up, this was obviously a plan they held dear to their hearts and believed would work.

“So, we were thinking and aging potion…”

“Which I’ve told them several times wont work because Dumbledore is smarter than that.” Granger sighed. 

“And we’ve told you that unless Lana says it won’t work, we’re trying it as it’s our best shot.” Fred said with a tone of annoyance.

“So, do you think it will work?” George said looking at Lana expectantly. Lana look at them for a minute trying to figure out whether or not to save them the energy or let them figure out that it won’t work for themselves.

“You know I can’t help you in the slightest with this?” She asked.

“Of course,” Lee said.

“It would be irresponsible of me as a prefect.”

“We understand that.” Fred nodded.

“And you must understand that I certainly could not tell you that the best recipe for an aging potion is on the third shelf down of the potions section in the library on page 38 of ‘50 Potions that they don’t teach you at Hogwarts.’ By Amelia Colton, and that if you go now Pince won’t be there to question you about it.”

The twins and Lee instantly got up thanking Lana quickly before running out of the hall in the direction of the Library.

“Kinda ironic isn’t it?” Ron said leaning his head on his hand and not really paying attention to what he was saying.

“Hm?” Lana looked at Ron who sat up a bit.

“Well I mean it’s called ‘50 Potions that they don’t teach you at Hogwarts.’ And its just in the library where any Hogwarts student could read it.

“I think Dumbledore did it on purpose just to spite the author, Merlin knows he’s petty enough.” Lana said absentmindedly as she finished her food.

“I wouldn’t call Dumbledore petty.” Harry said in a light tone.

“That’s because you’re his golden boy, you guys are the ones who benefit from his pettiness while the rest of us just have to deal with it.” She countered.

“How have we benefitted from it?” piped up a rather angry Irish boy in Harry’s year who was clearly eavesdropping in on the conversation.

“The prime example would be when these three,” she gestured to Harry, Ron and Hermione, “broke every rule the school has at the end of their first year, and instead of punishing you, Dumbledore gave you all just enough house points to beat the Slytherins even after we had already been announced the winners.” Lana could sense the tone of the room had changed drastically but she continued just to finish her point before heading out.

“I’m fully aware that there is a section of us that are very into blood purity and are just all around assholes, but the majority of us worked really hard in everything we did to ensure that we got enough points to win, and then for you guys to rescue some stone and go from 4th place to 1st at the ceremony just made it so obvious that he has a clear favouritism to Gryffindor house.”

Lana looked up to see that the Gryffindor’s were all starting to look very disgruntled. She was trying to figure out a way to get out of there when some one put a hand on shoulder.

“Hey Rowle, never though I’d see you sat here, anyway do you wanna go put our names in while its quiet so, you know, we don’t get any hassle?” Lana turned to find Tom looking down at her.

“Yeah sounds good,” she started to get up, she wanted to say something to acknowledge that she was leaving the Gryffindors, but decided to just go without another word. They clearly didn’t want one.

She and Tom set off out of the great doors and into the entrance hall where the Goblet sat in the middle of the room. The entrance hall was empty minus a couple of first years who clearly had nothing better early on a Saturday morning than just sit and watch people put their names in. Lana looked over to Tom who already had a quill ready and was just ripping up some paper for him and Lana to write their names on.

“Wow, you’re prepared, aren’t you?” Lana said as she wrote her name out on the parchment.

“Yeah well I wanted this to be quick.” Tom muttered, placing his name in the Goblet and receiving a small round of applause from the first years, which he nodded to.

Lana was just about to put her name in when to doors opened and Granger was calling her name.

“Look, Rowle I know your still upset about something that happened three years ago for some reason and I’m not trying to rile you up anymore, but I just wanted to say that I think it was really irresponsible of you to tell the twins about the potion, its against the rules.” She said in a very stuck up tone.

“Who’s this?” Tom said pointing to her.

“She’s no one, but because she’s friends with Potter she holds herself to a very high regard,” Lana said coldly, as Hermione’s attitude had rather annoyed her.

“Listen Granger, I knew exactly what I was doing, I suggest you come and watch when they try and put their names in.” Lana turned and moved to put her name in. “It’s going to be quite a show” and with that she dropped her name in the goblet and left.


	13. The champions

It was quite a show. Lana had been in the library when it happened. She was with Diane studying for a test they were going to have in herbology, when in they walked. The twins looked exactly how Lana had expected them to look. They still stood at their normal hight and had their 16-year-old bodies but their faces where weathered and the skin wrinkled around the eyes and mouth. However, you could barely see their faces as they were now sporting some very long grey beards.

Lana and Diane couldn’t hold in their laughter for more than 30 seconds after seeing them like that. Lana, who know it was coming was able to contain herself after a little giggle but Diane was gone like just completely gone. She was practically on the floor.

“Yes, we get it, we look hilarious,” Fred said in a sarcastic tone. 

“Lana did you know that was going to happen when they put their names in?” Diane asked between fits of giggles.

“I might have done.” Lana said coyly.

At that comment the twins rounded on her with looks of pure betrayal.

“Wait, really?!” They said in unison.

“God, it freaks me out when you guys do that,” Lana shuddered, “but yes, of course I did, consider it payback for you know, everything I have been put through these last six years.”

“And what exactly would all that be?” Fred asked.

“You guys literally turned her hair green, first week at Hogwarts.” Diane said not looking up from her book.

“Okay, first off, fair point, second off who’s your friend Lana?” George was staring over at Diane.

“This is Diane she’s a friend of mine from Ravenclaw.”

“Oh, I know you!” Fred was pointing over to Diane. “Transfiguration, third year, right?”

“Yep” Diane nodded.

“I cheated off you the whole time by the way.”

“I knew it.” Diane muttered.

Lana laughed and Diane finally getting the vindication she deserved, and turned back to Fred and George.

“So, I’m guessing you guys are here to get it reversed?”

“Yeah we are” Fred said turning back to Lana

“If you can?” George said looking worried.

“Of course, I can” Lana beckoned for them to come closer so that she could reverse the charm. They obliged and stepped towards her. Lana got to work on Fred first, it took a couple of incantations to get the different parts of his face but after a couple of minutes he was looking like his normal self again. Next it was George, who stepped a lot closer to Lana than Fred had which made her stomach do a funny twist. She began to start charming George’s face, but as she did, she secretly took all off him in his face, his smell and the warm aura he just gave off.

Once both the twins had been fully restored, they thanked Lana and headed back to the Gryffindor common room. Lana let out a little sigh. Diane let out a snort

“What?” Lana demanded.

“Nothing it’s just, you and him seem really close if you know what I mean.” She giggled.

“Oh, shut up.”

*

The evening had begun and the Halloween feast was in full session. The tables were covered in food but Lana had barely eaten bit off any off it she was far to nervous to have an appetite. Luckily everyone seemed to understand this and no one was pestering her to eat.

At one-point Tom had come over from where he was sitting to crouch down next to Lana and have a quick conversation. 

“So, Lana tonight’s the night.” He had said his tone full of excitement.

“It is.” Lana had wrung her hands together in fear. Tom clearly sensed her nerves and decided to not to engage her any further. 

“Well, let the best candidate win.”

“I will.” Lana joked

“Hey! Don’t count me out yet.” He called back at her, as he walked back to his friends

Lana and the rest of the girls in her dormitory had decided to all sit together for the evening and all the girls but Lana seem over the moon with excitement as they ate, they were all chatting about the calling off the names. 

“I can’t wait for this.” Dot squealed

“Yeah with Lana and Tom it will have to be a Slytherin champion.” Alexus sighed 

“Guys you have to deal with the very real possibility that its not me or Tom and that its someone from the other houses.” Lana reasoned 

“We know that but let us get all excited, this is all the fun we’ll get out this, you might actually get to compete.” Ava said as she moved some last bits of food on to her plate.

“You’ll get to watch.” 

“I guess.”

They continued to chat about everything and nothing at the same time. It was almost a cycle, they’d chat, they’d quiet, Lana would start to freak out and fade out of the room, someone would notice this and start a conversation to keep her calm and make sure her nerves didn’t get the best of her. When Dot called out.

“Guys it’s Dumbledore shh!”

Dumbledore stood at the top of the room with the other headteachers, Bagman and Crouch, where he began to speak.

“Well the goblet is almost ready to make its decision,” he said as he gestured to Goblet as it let out blue flames from its centre. “I estimate that it requires one more minute. Now when the champions’ names are called, I would ask them please to come up to the top of the hall, walk along the staff table and go through into the next chamber.” He waved his hand in the direction of a small door. “Where they will be receiving their first instructions.”

With that he took out his wand, and with a sweeping motion he extinguished all of the candles except for those in the pumpkin decorations. At this point all the girls had started to hold hands tightly under the table. The room was in semi-darkness with the light blue flame blazing brightly at top of the room. The atmosphere was tense but excited as everyone waited for the Goblet to make its’ first decision. Lana looked up from the girls’ hands to the Gryffindor table where the twins, Lee, the Golden trio and a few others were all leaning into Angelina Johnson, who had also put her name in.

The flame in the centre of the goblet began to turn red and sparks flew out sporadically before fizzling out of existence. This continued for what could have only been a few seconds but it felt like an age for everyone until a small piece of paper flew out and Dumbledore caught it. 

“The champion for Durmstrang,” he looked down at the paper, “will be Viktor Krum”.

The Durmstrang students at the Slytherin table roared with applause and screams. Lana was unsurprised but clapped politely nonetheless. Krum got up from his seat and followed Dumbledore’s instructions towards the small back room. As Krum passed Karkaroff, called out. 

“Bravo Viktor I knew you had it in you.”

Once everything had calmed down the Goblet began to spit sparks again and a second piece of paper flew out, which Dumbledore once again caught. He looked at it 

“The champion for Beauxbatons is Fleur Delacour.”

There was once again an uproar, but a much less positive one, the students from Beauxbatons were clapping for this Fleur girl but all also seemed very upset that they had not got it themselves. Two girls were actually crying. A girl rose from her seat at the Ravenclaw table, and Lana could tell instantly that she had at least some Vela in her, she was absolutely gorgeous, with long blond hair and a face that almost glowed. She made her way towards the small door and disappeared behind it.

The room went quiet for the third and final time as everyone waited with baited breath. The girls were all holding each other’s hands so tight that Lana was worried that they would break.

The goblet began to smoke for the final time, the sparks spitting almost obnoxiously as if they knew that everyone in the room was waiting for them to release the final bit of paper. When it did, it flew out of the Goblet and into Dumbledore’s hand. He looked down at it. Lana and the girls leaned in. 

“The Hogwarts champion is… Alana Rowle.”

The Slytherin table practically erupted as soon as Dumbledore said Lana’s first name, everyone was screaming and clapping so Lana could barley make out what anyone was saying, however she was able to catch a few things close to her. 

“YES!” One of the girls screamed

“Oh, Merlin Lana you did it!” Another squealed

“Do us proud Rowle!” someone yelled

“Go Slytherin!”

Lana began her walk up towards to the teachers table, but as she walked along the hall the tone of people’s yells began to change.

“We can’t have a Slytherin champion” she heard, as well as

“Pick again!” and

“This can’t be right!”

Lana wanted to sink into the ground, maybe if she just sat back down, they’d pick again, and maybe everyone else would get what they wanted.

But this wasn’t what everyone wanted. This was what Lana wanted, and she wasn’t going to let a bad reception from the other houses stop her from getting it. Besides she was a Slytherin, she had been dealing with this shit since she got sorted, she didn’t let it stop her then and she won’t let it stop her now. Ambition, that’s why she was put in Slytherin, not her family, but her drive and her determination, and her thirst to prove herself, and that was what she was going to do. She smiled as she walked past the twins and that lot, none of them smiled back. She held her head high and continued to walk up towards the teachers table, she walked past Dumbledore, he smiled at her and spoke 

“Well done miss Rowle now into the back room.”

Lana made her way to the door still hearing the cheers of the Slytherins and the yells of everyone else, she went through the door and closed it behind her letting all the noise fade out. She slouched against the door and took a deep breath. She looked up to see the beautiful Vela girl smiling at her. 

“Hello, I’m Fleur, it is very nice to meet you,” she said in her gorgeous French accent. 

“And I’m Victor it is a pleasure,” Krum was a lot taller than Lana expected she had never seen him this close before

“I’m Lana and its an honour to meet you both.”

There was a fireplace on the back wall of the room, Lana gravitated towards it and began to soak in its warmth to calm her nerves about all this. Fleur joined her at the fireplace and Victor began to pace along the room, Fleur looked as if she was about to start a conversation when the door opened and all the champions turned to see who had entered.

I was Harry Potter.

Why is it always Harry Potter?

Fleur, who had obviously not realised who he was, began to speak “What is it do zey want us back in ze hall?”

Harry just stood there dumbfounded. He was saved the trouble of answering them as Bagman walked in and hugged Harry to his side. He began to speak.

“Extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary Ladies… gentleman May I introduce you, incredible though it may seem to the fourth Triwizard Champion.”

The three of them just stood there for a minute, Fleur began to speak but Lana wasn’t listening.

“I don’t believe it” she muttered.

Other people started to come into the room, all of them talking about how Potter had wormed his way into this one and whether or not he should compete. Lana had zoned out; she was silently seething with anger. Of course, Potter had, had to come in here and ruin her one moment Slytherin’s one moment. She didn’t pay attention to anyone except when Snape began to speak. 

“It’s no one’s fault but Potter’s Karkaroff. Don’t go blaming Dumbledore for Potter’s determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines since he arrived here.” He was cut off by Dumbledore but from what he had said Lana had never liked him more than in this moment. She zoned out of the conversation again.

She was silently thinking about how everyone else would react to this, especially her fellow Slytherins when Dumbledore said her name,

“Are you alright over their Miss Rowle, the other champions have expressed their distaste and surprise at this turn of events and yet you have been quiet the whole time?”

“It’s just that I’m not surprised sir.” Lana said in a quiet but firm tone.

“Whatever do you mean?” Professor McGonagall seemed almost shocked.

“Well, like professor Snape said it’s Potter, you guys let him get away with anything.”

“I beg your pardon?” Moody said in a loud gruff tone.

“I mean no disrespect, you guys do what you want, its just…” Lana was having a hard time to find the words to explain what she was trying to say.

“Well for example, didn’t you openly reward him and his friends after he broke the one big rule you guys had, ‘the third-floor corridor on the right is out of bounds for anyone who doesn’t want to die a gruesome death’”

“Well yes but…” Professor McGonagall tried to interject.

“And then, didn’t you guys give him and his Weasley friend awards for special services to the school after he went into the chamber of secrets and attacked a teacher.” Lana paused, no one tried to stop her so she kept going.

“And then last year, he actively followed a mass murderer, attacked professor Snape and in the processes forced Lupin to transform in the open without his potion.” She once again paused. Everyone was just staring at her.

“And you guys just let it happen and he never gets punished, not even a stern talking to. So, no I’m not surprised that Potters wormed his way into this one.” She looked up to see everyone still staring at her.

“I’m sorry sir, but you asked me how I felt, and that’s how I, and many others, feel, if I was being honest the only thing that would shock me here is that Potter’s name wasn’t called first.” Lana finished with a joke. That fortunately Dumbledore laughed at.

“If he has to compete, he has to compete, I can’t change that, I am however allowed to be angry about it, just like Victor and Fleur it’s just I have more of an argument to my point.” She stopped talking and took a step back to indicate she had said everything she wanted to.

“Well, I’m afraid we have four champions.” Dumbledore said in a firm tone as if that ended the discussion, which to be fair it did.

Bagman began to speak again but once again Lana didn’t listen. She only zoned back into the conversation when Mr Crouch said the word instructions and she began to listen intently, Potter or no Potter she still wanted to win this thing.

“The first task is designed to test your daring, so we are not going to be telling you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard… very important.” He paused then continued.

“The first task will take place on November 24th, in front of the other students and a panel of judges.”

“The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wand. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Owing to the demand and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempt from end of year tests,” he turned to Dumbledore, “I think that’s all of it Albus?”

“I think so”

They began to discuss who was staying at Hogwarts and who was leaving but Lana wasn’t paying them any mind, she was too busy taking in everything she had just heard.

“Harry, Alana.” Lana looked up to see that both Fleur and Maxime, and Krum and Karkaroff had both left the room.

“I suggest you go up to bed,” Dumbledore began, “I am sure Gryffindor and Slytherin are both wanting to celebrate with you and it would be a shame to deprive them of an excellent excuse to make a great deal of mess and noise.”

“Yes sir,” Lana nodded and began to make her way out, when a thought came to her mind.

“Oh, and professor Dumbledore?”

“Yes Miss Rowle?”

“I would appreciate it if whenever I am addresses in this competition it’s as Lana rather than Alana, Alana is just what my parents use whenever they want to impress someone, or if their mad at me.”

“Duly noted…Lana”

“Thank you, sir.” And with that Lana made her way out of the room and back through the now deserted and earie great hall. She didn’t make it very far down the hall when she heard her name being called.

“LANA, Lana I need to talk to you!” Potter was following after her waving an arm in the air frantically.

“What is it Potter?” Lana sighed turning around.

“You have to understand I didn’t put my name in someone else did.”

“And why would I believe that? Listen Potter this has your name written all over it, it’s like Snape said you’ve had absolutely no regard for the rules since you got here. I may have joked about you worming your way into the spotlight once again, or acted like I wasn’t shocked, but I never thought you’d actually have the guts to do it”

Potter now clearly very frustrated and willing to say anything spoke up.

“Well maybe, you had something to do with it.” He said, he seemed shocked by his own words at first but stood his ground in the conversation.

“Excuse me.” Lana said taken aback by this wildly untrue statement.

“I’ve heard about your parents from all of the Weasleys, they were death eaters and some of the masked people at the world cup.” He said stumbling over a syllable here and there but he still seemed confident in what he was saying.

“Listen Potter.” Lana practically growled. “I know you’re trying to prove your point, but chose your next words wisely. “

“What if you put my name in as some kind of death eater plot and you entered to make sure it went to plan.” Lana could tell he regretted the words as soon as he said them. He began to fluster up an apology but the damage had already been done. Lana was writhing with anger at this point.

“Look Potter, I entered because of my Ambition and drive to prove myself, and to give Slytherin a little house pride, and those are the only reasons, got it?”

And with that she turned around and headed back towards the dungeons without another word.


	14. Dragons??

Lana woke the next morning bundled up in blankets, the Slytherin dorms always got super cold from late October, to early November and then midway through November when temperature really begin to drop magical heating starts to kick in. So, in the time in between the students have to cover their beds in blankets to keep themselves warm. She rolled over to see the rest of her dorm all still asleep. Dumbledore was right. Lana was greeted with a massive party a soon she had one foot through the portrait hole. Everyone was clapping and cheering and everyone wanted to talk to her, but Lana, who was just now realising that she had barley eaten anything for hours and was now extremely hungry was drawn to the array of food in the middle of the room. The party must have gone on for ages but Lana only managed about an hour and a half before she got tired. But at that point she had done everything she had wanted, Tom had handed over his money, She and Alex had drunk to her potential win and she had been thrown on the shoulders of two seventh year boys. So, at around midnight Lana had slipped away, up to her dorm and into bed.

And now nine hours later, she was the only one up, breakfast didn’t start until ten on Sundays, so Lana decided to go for a run, her mind had been so filled with everything that had been going on that she hadn’t gone out running in ages.

She was out on the crisp grounds around fifteen minutes later, and set off immediately. It was liberating, her feet pounding against the cold grass and her mind free. She ran for about half an hour before heading back into the castle. Once she was back in her dorm everyone else was still asleep, so she jumped into the shower for about fifteen minutes. Once out she chucked on some clothes, magically dried her hair and headed to breakfast.

The hall was really quiet when she got down there, mainly because the Gryffindor table was practically deserted. She scanned the room and found Sam, Mandy and Diane sat at the Ravenclaw table. She made her way over and Ravenclaws all down the table smiled at her as she passed them, some even congratulated her, it was a new occurrence but Lan enjoyed it all them same. Once she made it all the way down to her friends, she practically fell down onto Mandy, and rested her head on her shoulder. Mandy took a second to notice who she was, but once she did, she squeezed Lana so tight that Lana could barley breath.

“Oh Merlin Lana, I’m so proud of you!”

“Thanks, Mand, but you’re killing me.” Lana breathed.

“Oh, right, sorry.” She said letting go.

“Yeah, though, Lan this is crazy.” Sam piped up.

“I know, this is crazy Lan.” Diane said looking up from her food.

“I honestly still can’t believe it.” Lana said grabbing some cereal. She moved herself so that she was sat cross-legged on the bench and brought the cereal to her lap. The other girls were chatting about what the tournament might hold but Lana was still thinking about what Potter had said the night before. Death eater plot honestly the nerve of him.

“So, where are Ava and Lucy?”

“Well, the Slytherins held a large party then went into the deep hours of the night, so that’s why Ava’s out, and I’m guessing Gryffindor did the same,” Lana yawned.

“So how come you are already up? Did you not stay up as late?”

“I didn’t have the stamina for it, I was so tired from the evening that I was one of the first people in bed, but I still had a good time.”

The post began to flood in and Lana could see the family owl, Hera, heading in her direction. She landed gracefully next to Lana and held out her leg with a letter attached to it. Lana took it and offered some toast to the owl, which she took almost instantly. Lana opened the letter, it read.

Dear Alana.

We are over the moon to hear of your success in the Triwizard tournament selection, we know you will do us proud. (even Greta was pleased)

Lana had to take a minute. Greta was Lana’s last living grandparent and was very hard to please, so if she was impressed Lana knew she had done well. She continued to read.

You must understand how important it is that you show your best attributes in this tournament, officials from every sector of the wizarding world will be there to watch and you need to impress them all. This is your opportunity to make yourself known in the community, take it.

We are extremely proud of you, and as much as we would like you to bring home that 1000 galleons, you’ve already won the recognition, and that is worth its weight in gold. Stay safe stay proud, and if any bitter Gryffindors give you trouble, you should know enough hexes by now to ensure that it is a onetime occurrence.

Lots of love

Mum and Dad.

Lana closed the letter, and turned to Hera, who was just finishing her slice of toast.

“I’m going to need a little time to get a reply together so why don’t you go up to the owlery and I’ll see you later. Hera hooted to say that she understood and flew away. As she left Lucy entered, followed by the entire Weasley clan and all their tagalongs. Potter was there and the entire Gryffindor table started to applaud. Lana rolled her eyes and turned back to her food. She felt Lucy plop down next to her and rest her head on her shoulder.

“Well done.” She said quietly.

“Let me guess Gryffindor partied until the sun came out?”

“They might’ve done I only lasted until about two, but still.” You could barley make out what she was saying she was yawning so much.

Lana looked over to where Fred and George where sitting with Harry. Lucy followed her.

“Be honest with me, how bad where they last night?”

“Um”

“Great” Lana said sarcastically turning back around.

“They weren’t that bad,” Lucy started seeing Lana’s upset. “They were so ecstatic that Harry wormed his way in, and anything they did say was mainly about it being a Slytherin than it being you.”

“Well, that’s an improvement, I guess.”

“Just talk to them, aren’t you seeing them this Wednesday for potions?” Sam asked.

“Yeah I will.”

They stayed there chatting for a bit, Ava joined them eventually. Lana thought about how Potter would have said something about her reaction.

“Did Potter tell you my opinions on the matter?” She turned to Lucy

“Yep.”

“How did that go down?”

“Not well.”

“Well, did he tell you what he said to me?”

“No”

“Thought not, he does not come off well in the story.”

All the girls leaned in to hear what Lana had to say and she began to explain.

“So, after the rules had been explained and we were free to go, Potter caught up with me and was trying to convince me he didn’t put his name in, and I obviously didn’t believe him because, it’s Potter.” Everyone nodded in agreement and Lana kept going “So at this point Potter’s kinda frustrated and would clearly say anything to try and get leverage in the conversation, so” Lana took a deep breath, and wriggled a bit she did not want to think about how they where going to react to this. Better to rip the plaster off quickly she thought.

“So, he accused me of putting his name in as a death eater plot and entering myself to make sure it went to plan.”

The girls all recoiled, Lana could hear a someone say,

“How dare he?” and another say,

“That’s horrid just because of your parents.”

But she was too focused on keeping Lucy in her seat to tell who it was.

“But I’ve decided to let it slide, be the bigger person, they want me to be the mean Slytherin who sabotages his chances, so I’m going to be the exact opposite just to prove them wrong.” She said her tone full of rage.

“I’m going to be the best fucking sport he’s ever seen.”

“So, you’re going to be nice out of spite?” Diane asked

“Yes.”

“Yeah that checks out” 

*

The first few days of Lana’s first week as the Hogwarts champion flew by. She was just doing so much, even though she didn’t have to sit her exams she was still trying her best in lessons as next year was so important, she also had written back to her parents, thanking them and telling them that she would do them proud, and she had practised some key spells for whatever she had thrown at her in the first task. She hadn’t even done a task yet and being a champion was already difficult, she had already, had to do a ceremony in which her wand was examined by Mr Ollivander to see if it was fit for the competition, and she was then interviewed by a retched woman who made up a lot of stories. She had a quill that wrote for her, but the quill tended add in extra detail that wasn’t actually there. For instance, at one point whilst Lana was talking about how she was preparing, it started writing about how she looked haunted by her parents past Death Eater lives. 

It was now Wednesday evening and Lana was sitting in the potions room waiting for the twins to turn up so she could start their tutoring session, they were five minutes late, but that was normal for the twins. But then it was ten minutes, then fifteen and still no sign of them. At this point Lana had come to the conclusion that they weren’t coming. But she decided to stay just in case they did, to keep herself entertained she got out the detox book she had gotten for her birthday and started on a rose infused potion that once drunk would make you smell like roses for a week.

Once she had finished, it was around 8 and most people would still be at dinner so she headed down to the Hall assuming the twins had just forgotten about potions, she scanned the hall when she got there and found them at the Gryffindor table.

“Hey, where were you guys, it was potions night?” she asked in a light tone.

“Sorry, I guess we just didn’t want to waste our time with something we were forced to do.” Fred spat.

“Forced to do?” Lana looked at George who seemed very interested in his silverware. “Look, if you guys want to stop this because of some stupid grudge and I’m not the champion you would’ve wanted that’s fine, Merlin knows I have enough on my plate now.”

Fred recoiled, looking very taken aback, Lana realised that they didn’t expect her to snap like that. She took a deep breath and continued.

“If you don’t want to ‘waste your time’ that’s fine, but at least tell me, so I don’t waste mine preparing stuff to help you guys. And so I don’t feel like an idiot sitting in the potions waiting for an hour just in case you guys decided to take time out of your apparently very busy schedules to join me.” 

She walked off, seething, but also for some reason crying, she heard someone calling her name expecting a twin she turned around ready to yell again. But found Tom instead.

“You alright Lana? That looked like quite a row.”

“I’m fine, I just don’t why I’m crying, I’m angry, I’m by no means upset.” Lana was so frustrated at herself for getting worked up about this.

“It’s stupid,” she sniffed wiping her eyes with her sleeve, “but I put all this effort in, and that’s how I get treated?”

“No, it’s not stupid, but you’re moving on to much bigger and better things, and everyone knows it.” Tom said putting an arm around Lana.

“Yeah.” Lana giggled.

“You nearly finished that book?”

“Hm? Oh yeah the book, I totally forgot about that, I finished it weeks ago.”

“Oh, come on! You forgot about me?” Lana had never realised just how happy Tom made her feel, she was already much happier just from this conversation.

“I didn’t forget about you as a person, just that agreement.” Lana said playfully.

“Well if we head back now, why don’t you grab it for me.” He said starting to walk towards the dungeons.

“Okay.” Lana sighed calmly, placing her head on his shoulder as they walked.

They didn’t make it very far before Lana heard her name being called again. This time it was a twin, George to be exact.

“You wanna, keep going or, do you want to talk to him?” Tom asked gently.

“I’ll talk to him.” Lana said quietly

“You want me to stay?”

“I’ll be fine.” Lana said straightening up.

Tom patted her on the shoulder, and headed off towards the dungeons, leaving Lana to deal with George.

Hey, Lana I’m sorry about Fred, it’s just that-”

He always did this, why did he think it was okay to let Fred say whatever he wants, let her feel terrible in the moment and then come apologise when the time suited him?

“No, no, stop,” Lana said putting her hand up.

“What? I’m just trying to apologise.” George seemed like he was getting frustrated with her.

“It’s just, you keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“You just let him say whatever he wants in the moment, and you don’t do anything about it, you let it happen to keep your reputation.”

George looked taken aback, he was building up to say something, but Lana got there first.

“You can’t just apologise in private.”

“But I-”

“Listen, either stand up for me in the moment or just don’t bother with me.” Lana said quietly walking off.

*

Time seemed to speed up for Lana, and all of a sudden, the first task was a week away, she had been preparing lots of different small all-purpose spells, but the fact that she had no idea what she was facing was scaring her.

Tensions were starting to rise between Gryffindor and Slytherin as the task drew nearer, Malfoy and his gang had started making badges, that read,

Support Lana Rowle

The Real Hogwarts

Champion.

And then if you tap the centre of the badge it changed from the handsome silver and emerald to a disgusting light green and the words changed to.

Potter

Stinks.

Lana hated the badges with every fibre of her body, it would just make the Gryffindors even more angry, she knew that a couple of Potter’s little fan boys had tied to make it that it was the other way round. She had tired to catch Potter to explain but whenever he wasn’t in lessons, he was always surrounded by an entourage of his Gryffindor supporters.

Malfoy and his gaggle of fourth years had tried to follow Lana around for a little while, but she had basically told them to get lost within the first few days of her being a champion.

Lana was sat in in the Great Hall reading up on all kinds of different potions she could use for different situations, even though she would only have her wand at the start, she would have some potions prepared and with her friends in the crowd, and if they were needed she could just summon them.

Mandy, Sam, Ava and Diane were sat with her, they were all also reading books to help Lana find the necessary potions, they were all scanning books and making lists of every potion that might be useful for Lana, they were all so roped up in what they were doing they didn’t even notice Lucy sit down next to Lana, they just sat in silence working until Lucy cleared her throat,

“Oh, hey Luce” Lana said looking up slightly, before going back to her books, but in the corner of her eye she saw a hint of green attached to Lucy’s person. She did doubletake to see that Lucy was wearing one of those god-awful badges.

“No, no, absolutely not, take it off now,” Lana began straight away. Lucy instantly started laughing uncontrollably.

“Wow, what was that like thirty seconds to notice?” She chuckled

“Something like that.” Diane said not looking up.

“Very funny, but I’m serious,” Lana started “Take that thing off.”

“Okay, okay, I’m taking it off.” Lucy said, as she took the badge off from her chest. Lana held out a hand indicating that she wanted Lucy to give her the badge.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Lucy put the badge in Lana’s hand.

“Okay.”

Lana got up from her seat, dropped the badge on the floor and then immediately stepped on it, crushing it instantly.

“Have I made myself clear?” She said sitting back down.

“Definitely.” Mandy said looking down at the sad remnants of the badge on the floor.

“Great, now you’ve got all of that lot looking over at us.” Ava said looking at the Gryffindor table.

“Let them,” Lana said not even looking up from her book, “don’t pay them any mind.” Lana was so over that lot, she hadn’t said a word to any of them since her conversation with George.

“I can’t believe I wasted my time, and my feelings on them.” She continued

“Ah, so you admit it,” Mandy said in an exaggerated tone, “there was feelings.”

“Stupid feelings.”

“But feelings nonetheless, now we know you have the capacity for that.” Mandy said holding Lana’s hands

“What about the years she’s spent crushing on my brother, at least that one actually had a chance.”

“Fair point.”

“I love Tom, our families have been friends for years, Merlin knows our parents are currently arranging a marriage as we speak, but I always feel out of place next to him, like yes he’s shown interest in me, but like it’s Tom Stevens everybody wants to date him, even people from other houses, so why me?” Lana said putting her head in her hands.

“But, you’re Lana Rowle, the true Hogwarts champion, guys are now going to be lining up for you and you’ve already practically got the best one.” Sam reasoned.

“Yeah, you are currently at like the top of the school.” Lucy said through a mouthful of food.

“You’re that bitch” Diane said snapping her fingers.

“I’m that bitch.” Lana laughed. “Thanks guys.” She relaxed her body and grabbed a muffin from the centre of the table.

“Shall we head to the library?”

The group had been going to the library every moment they could since Lana had been named champion, to make sure she was fully ready for anything that could come up during the task.

“Yeah, let’s go.”

Once they made it to the library, they spread out to different sections so they could cover as much ground as possible. Lana was curled up on one of the arm chairs in the potions sections reading about how different potions can affect different senses when Lucy called over to her.

“Someone, to see you Lana.”

Lana was about to ask who when Potter came round the corner, looking scared but like he had a purpose.

“Hi, Lana, could I talk to you for a minute,” he looked over to Mandy sat opposite Lana, “alone.”

“Yeah, sure.” Lana said looking to Mandy confused. Mandy gave Lana a look that said just go with it. Lana got up from hear seat and followed him out into the corridor.

“So, what is it?” Lana asked, arms folded over her chest.

“Dragons, that’s the first task, they’ve got one for each off us, I’m not sure what we have to do, I’m guessing we’re going to have to get past them.” 

Lana just stood there for a minute nodding to herself, before opening her mouth and beginning to talk.

“Dragons?” She practically squeaked, “are, are, are you sure?”

“Yes, I’ve seen them.” He said firmly.

“Okay.” She said, even higher and softer than the last time, still nodding slowly, she took a deep breath and recomposed herself. “Do Fleur and Krum know?”

“Yes, they saw them too, and I didn’t want you to be the only one going in there not knowing, so that’s why I told you.” He said.

“Ok, well I really apricate that,” Lana said, unfolding her arms. “I owe you one.”

He began to leave, Lana watched him go for a minute before realising she could have all that tension looming over her and calling him back.

“Potter.” He turned back around looking at her expectantly.

“Look, as much as I’m upset that you’re in this thing, I shouldn’t’ve reacted the way I did, if you say you didn’t put your name in, you didn’t put your name in.”

“Thank you, and I don’t actually think you put my name in as a death eater plot, from what Fred and George have said about you, that doesn’t sound like something you’d do, and if I’m being honest I was just overwhelmed that night from everything, as much I have been in the spotlight I would actually kill for a quiet year.”

“I get you, and who knows, maybe next year.” Lana laughed

“Yeah.”

“Oh, and also, I’m sure you can already tell, but I despise those badges and I had nothing do with them, if I’m going to win, I’m going to win without putting my competition down.”

“Thanks, and I had already got that from you throwing one on the floor and then stepping on it.”

“I’ll see you around Potter.”

“I’ll see you too, and it’s just Harry.”

“Harry? Nah, sorry that’s going to take some getting used to.”

Lana turned back round, happy with herself that she had sorted things out with him. She slipped back into her seat in the library and continued to read


	15. The First Task

“Right Lana, I’m going to be honest with you, because you clearly aren’t being honest with yourself, you’re being really annoying at the moment.”

“Damn bro, tell me how you really feel.” Lana said pacing through the Slytherin common room.

It was the night before the first task and she and Alex had been chatting for hours, they hadn’t had a good catch up in a while and Lana had a lot to talk about. She had filled him on absolutely everything and apparently, he wasn’t happy.

“Sorry Lan, but this isn’t like you,” Alex was sat in one of the arm chairs as Lana paced, “Be honest with me, would you from a couple of months ago let people walk all over you?”

“No.”

“Exactly, so why are you letting it happen now.”

“I don’t know” Lana sighed “It’s just everyone is looking at me now, waiting for me to slip, to be that bitchy Slytherin that they expect me to be, and I feel like I have to please everyone.” She sat down, there weren’t any seats left, so she plopped down in front of Alex.

“Well then, lets get this straight, you don’t,” Alex said in a final tone, “You don’t let anyone push you around, except maybe that dragon that you’re going to have to face, it’ll probably push you around a bit.”

“Thanks for reminding me of that.”

“Sorry, but you have to understand you can’t just let them into your life like that, if you really want to build back up on this slight friendship you’ve established, can’t see why, they need to earn it. and as of right now they’re not earning it.”

“Okay, so annoying redheads aside,” Lana said, sliding back slightly and leaning on her hands, “facing a dragon.”

“Right so, you’ve just got to get past them?”

“As, far as I’m aware, yeah.”

“Well out of all of those long lists of different potions, what one could help you sneak past something?”

“Well there are a couple that can affect senses, like sight, smell and hearing, but I’d have to give them to the dragon and that’s definitely not happening.”

“Forget potions, what about charms?”

“Well, actually I’ve been looking into this one charm but it’s kind of complicated.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a disillusionment charm. If I put it on myself, I’d camouflage into whatever I’m in front of.”

“Like a chameleon that could work.”

“Yeah, but the dragon would still be able to smell and hear me.”

“Okay, but it will be so busy trying to see you, a dragon isn’t going to be smart enough to go ‘oh she’s disappeared its must be a disillusionment charm’ its going to be really confused and then you can slip past it, you’ve got the running stamina for it.”

“That’s a fair point.”

“So, have you been practising it?”

Lana took out her wand, placed it on her head and began twisting it down her body muttering the incantation illusionist, she hadn’t quite mastered doing it nonverbally. She watched Alex’s face as her body started to blend into the backgrounds of the room. He looked completely amazed.

“That’s sick.” He said looking at the spot where her face had been.

“Yep now all have to do is get past it without dying.”

“You’ll be fine.” Alex said but he didn’t look too certain at that statement.

Lana was too busy reversing the charm to notice the fear in his eyes.

“And as for that lot, you need to remember your worth and realise that you have done nothing wrong and deserve better, and that either involves them getting better or you moving on, but until one of those things happens, you’re stuck in limbo.“Thanks, I needed that tough love,” Lana said getting up from her seat on the ground, “and for you to tell me what I needed to know.”

“I didn’t tell you anything you needed to know, just stuff you already knew deep down and just needed reminding off.”

“Well thanks, regardless.”

“Anytime” Alex said clicking his hand into a figure gun, that made Lana openly cringe at him. She waved him goodbye, and headed off to bed.

She didn’t sleep well, her dreams were filled with the sounds of dragons roaring and images of flames flying at her. She shot up and looked to see that it was still dark outside, she looked over to her clock and saw that it was six in the morning. Not bad, she thought to herself, she could’ve been up a lot earlier all things considered. She sat up and stroked Nova for a bit, before heading into the common room to read, she was the only one down there for about an hour, before she had to go down to breakfast and then her first few lessons of the day.

During lunch Lana went back to the common room to change into her competition robes, she looked over to her dresser and saw that it had the necklace her mother had given her for her birthday, she remembered the message her mother had left, You may find the necklace more useful than you might think. Assuming the necklace would just be some good luck charm she put it on and hid it under her robes.

She came down from her dorm fully dressed and just sat in a chair by the fire but as the time passed more and more people began to go up to their room for a bit and head back down to the Great Hall. Lana noticed that they were all coming out of their rooms wearing a Slytherin scarf over their clothes and some of them had even gone to the extent of wearing green tops and green face paint it was a small gesture but Lana loved it all the same. She got a stream of “good lucks” and “you’ll be greats” as people passed her which she always nodded to or said a quiet “thanks” but she was too nervous to hold an actual conversation. She just sat quietly thinking over how she was going to deal with a dragon, when she heard someone say,

“No, you can’t just sit there waiting, you need to eat.” Lana felt herself being dragged out of her seat and out of the portrait hole. She looked up to see Ava dressed in all green with a large roll in her hand.

“I’m fine Ava, I don’t need you to walk me to the great hall, I do have working legs.”

“Really? prove it, because as far as I can tell you’re a mess.”

Lana pulled herself free from Ava’s grip and started walking, her legs felt like jelly but she didn’t let it show, no signs of weakness.

They made it down to the Great Hall, the room was full of colour. The Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students were draped in clothes that reflected their champions, The Gryffindor table was a sea of red, the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws seemed to be fairly green but they had incorporated bits of red into their outfits as well. Ava grabbed Lana’s hand and led her to where the group was sitting, they were all caked in green apart form Lucy very much resembled a Christmas tree as she was a mix of green and red clearly wanting to support both champions equally. Lana sat down and everyone began to chat, the conversation seemed light, but Lana was too busy freaking out to hear them.

“C’mon Lan, you don’t know what you’re facing so you might as well not freak out too much.”

Lana hadn’t exactly told them about the dragons, she hadn’t told anyone except Alex, she didn’t want to many people knowing she knew in case it accidently reached a teacher, and she also didn’t want her friends freaking out too much. She stayed there listening in to the conversation and chiping in when she had something to say, until a soft voice said her name behind her.

“Alana?” Lana turned to see Viktor and Fleur standing behind her. “Viktor and I were going to head down to the stands, would you care to join us?” She said in a thick french accent.

“Yeah, sounds great.” Lana said getting up. She looked over to where Harry was sitting, he should go and get him, it would be the right thing to do, but she couldn’t see herself going over and talking to the Gryffindors just yet, so she left it and headed down to the grounds will the other two real champions as she liked to call them, Potter was too young and as far as he was telling anyone who’d listen didn’t actually want to be in the competition so Lana wasn’t really counting him, even though the teachers did, as much as she was happy that they were no longer at each other’s throats anymore, she was still not happy that he was there. She was also a little concerned that the teachers were rooting for him, the tagalong, more than her, the actual champion. They all seemed to be treating him more special than they already did, and they were barely talking to her any different, occasionally sometimes just to tell her that just because she was exempt from exams doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be slacking off even though she had actually started working harder in lesson after being chosen. Quite frankly it was beginning to piss her off. She was the actual champion, the one that had followed all the rules and still Potter was getting all the attention. She got that they were worried for him but this was still supposed to be her moment, and Potter had just been thrown into it, whether he threw himself or had someone else throw him didn’t matter.

They had reached the tent that the champions had to stay in, it was a small tent, with a few seats and medical beds ready for the aftermath. Fleur went and sat down on a stool and Krum stood in the corner, both of them looked off from their normal selves. Seconds after Krum and Fleur had set foot in the tent Karkaroff and Maxime had come in to give them a quick pep talk before heading to the judging seats. Lana looked round no sign of Dumbledore or any Hogwarts teachers. Bagman came in looking very excited and bouncing on the balls of his feet. Lana began to pace the tent, she heard Potter come up to the tent getting a small pep talk from McGonagall, she began to wonder why no-one had given her a pep talk, but realised why pretty quickly, after looking down at the Slytherin colours of her robes. Bagman began to speak,

“Well, now you’re all here time to fill you in! When the audience has assembled, I’m going to be offering each of you this bag,” he held up a small, silky purple bag, and shook it. “from which you will each select a small model of the thing you are about to face! There are different- er- varieties, you see. And I have to tell you something else too… ah, yes… your task is to collect the golden egg!”

Lana nodded silently and began to pace again, she took the time she had to french plait her hair as it was still too short to tie it up in a ponytail without bits falling out, but too long to just leave down. Hundreds of footsteps past them a buzz of conversation following everyone. At one point her dormmates must’ve walked past because she distinctively heard Dot yell.

“Good luck Lana, you’ll be great!”

“Thanks Dot.” She called back with an elastic band in her mouth. She wrapped the elastic around one of her plaits, and was once again called to the centre of the room.

“Visitors first.” Bagman said, opening the bag.

Fleur pulled out a figure of what Lana guessed to be a Welsh Green, she had done copious amounts of research on different dragon breeds the second she had found out she would have to get passed one. The model had a small number two around its neck indicating that Fleur was going second. Krum then reached his hand into the bag pulling out what seemed to be a Chinses Fireball with a number three around its neck. Based off how both of then had reacted to seeing the dragon models potter was right they had both known.

Lana was next to put her hand in, she knew that she was either going first or last, and she hadn’t yet decided which one was better, she didn’t get time to either as she had just grabbed hold of an object in the bag, pulling out a model of a Swedish Short-Snout with a number one around its neck meaning Lana was going first, she looked down at the model for a moment, as it rolled around in her hand spitting sparks, Potter picked his dragon Lana recognised it to be a Hungarian Horntail, she winced for Potter, those things were vicious. Lana began to zone out, everything seemed ten times more real now that she actually had evidence that she was going to face a dragon in her hands. She was pulled back into the room by Bagman saying her name.

“Miss Rowle, you’re first, just go out into the enclosure when you a hear whistle alright?” Lana nodded not really able to make a sound, and headed towards the exit. She stood there waiting for this whistle that would tell her that is was fine for her to enter and enclosure with a wild and ferocious dragon. She was only stood stewing for a minute when a whistle blew indicating that is was time for her to go, she passed Potter on her way out he opened his mouth to say something but his nerves clearly got the better of him as he wasn’t able to string sounds together. Lana didn’t blame him.

As she got closer, she began to hear cheers of her name even the Gryffindors where cheering for her, she felt a sudden warmth fill in her chest, that was quickly squashed by the sudden roar of the dragon, she looked up to see it guarding a nest full of eggs, she scanned the nest and found the golden egg in the centre of it all, shinning in the sun. She took a minute to take in the giant shape of the dragon, it was very stocky and had a mixture of green and blue scales, it didn’t have much neck and it had very short legs, the one thing that made the Short Snout extremely dangerous was that it could breathe its flames for a long distance, Lana remembered that from one of the many books she had read. The main thing that she was noticing about the dragon at the moment was that it had a chain around its neck, this put her at a bit more ease than she had been moments ago.

The dragon had noticed her and ran as far as it could towards her, once it had reached its tether it began to breath its flames Lana dived behind a rock before it could reach her, the flames hit the rock and split either side of her. She put her hands over her head and let the flames either side of her rage on as she had nothing else she could do, but she also felt a heat in her chest for some reason, putting it down to nerves she took a deep breath and looked up to see her friends, they were holding a sign that said, LANA ROWLE, SHE’S THAT BITCH. Lana laughed at the sign, as she did the flames stopped, she recomposed her self and did the disillusionment charm on herself. Once she could tell that she was definitely camouflaging into her surroundings she stepped out from the rock and began to climb to the top of the enclosure, the Dragon may have not noticed her yet, but the crowed had, they were cheering her on like crazy. She continued her climb for about five minutes, the dragon was still sniffing its way through the rocks, it obviously thought, that she was still there. Things were going well until she slipped and a small avalanche of rocks fell attracting the dragon’s attention, she dipped behind a rock to hide from it, she saw it fly over head and looked to see that had gone back to its nest.

Great. Lana thought. Well done Rowle, you had a clear path to the egg and you’ve ruined it. She made her last few steps up to the top of the rocks, and once again hid behind one as she thought about how she was going to get the dragon to move from its protective stance, she started by levitating some rocks in the hope of distracting it. The dragon didn’t budge. Bagman had been commentating the whole time, but Lana could barely hear any of it, the panic had caused a ringing sensation in her ears that meant she could just barley hear the crowd let alone Bagman. But as she sat behind the rock thinking about her options his voice began to flood into her ears.

“A nice attempt at distraction, but unsuccessful, a mother’s nature is too strong, I guess.”

Lana thought about those words for a moment, a mother’s nature is too strong. At this Lana instantly though back to her first ever visit to the ministry, she was six, her father was still in St.Mungos with Alex, her mother had to go into work for a very important conversation. St.Mungos had strict visiting hours for children and her grandmother Greta was overseas. So, her mother had taken her into the Ministry. Lana had remembered her mother being on the war path on that day, she had let go of Lana’s hand for a second so she could yell at an intern with all of her power, Lana being a curious six year old had gone for a wonder and accidently found herself in the fountain, she had let out a very loud cry in fear that had instantly caused her mum to forget what she was doing and go help Lana.

I need to distract her with a child in danger, Lana thought, but how? She wracked her brains and remembered and illusion charm that could be placed on an object to make it look like something else. She pointed her wand at one of the rocks and cast the spell, thinking of nothing but, and injured baby Short Snout, it took a minute but the spell worked, the illusion of an injured baby dragon was created for everyone to see. The dragon fell for this instantly, she let out a roar of horror and made her way over to the illusion giving Lana a free path to the egg. She got up and made a run for it, she slipped elegantly past rocks of every size. Once she reached the nest she slowed down, she had to be careful not to harm any of the real dragon eggs. The sounds of the crowd’s cheers and Bagman yelling…

“Wow, would you look at that amazing play folks.” Filled Lana’s ears, she summoned the egg into her hands and the crowd went wild, she began to make her way to the exit, she was nearly there when she heard Bagman call,

“Oh no, the dragon appears to have realised that it was just an illusion and is heading back over to our champion’s position.”

Lana once again felt that heat on her chest and looked down to see her necklace glowing almost as if it was warning her of something, she jumped behind a rock just as a set of the dragons flames shot past her, barley missing her and hitting the spot where she had just stood. The dragon was back and absolutely furious that one of her eggs had been stolen, she continued to throw flames at the rocks trying find Lana as she was still camouflaging into her surroundings. Between the flames Lana jumped between rocks avoiding the heat. She was just about to make it into the safety of the tent, when the dragon let out a final set of flames that caught a bit of Lana’s leg, she let out a cry of pain and the crowd all gasped. She pulled herself into the tent and sat on the floor as Bagman called.

“Well, with only one severe injury, our first champion has collected her egg in a fairly reasonable time.” He began to say something else but was drowned out by he cheers of the crowd. A chant of “ROWLE” had begun. Lana got up and reversed her disillusionment charm and Bagman began to speak.

“Well, now that we can actually see her, why don’t we get those scores?”

Lana hopped back into the enclosure on her good leg and looked up to the judges. Maxime was first she raised her wand and let out a large eight, not bad. Next was Crouch he lifted his wand and a large nine shot out, Lana smiled and looked over to Dumbledore who was next he also gave her a nine, with a small wink to go with it. Bagman was next, like Maxime he gave her a reasonable eight, things were looking really good, and then Karkaroff lifted his wand and it let out a five.

“What?” Lana whispered to herself. However, she didn’t have time to question it, McGonagall was gesturing for her to come back to the tent. Lana was expecting at least a well done from her but all she got was,

“Go to madame Pomfrey Rowle, now.”

Lana obliged looking back in shock, had she really just been ignored like that? Pomfrey was on her within seconds muttering about safety as she smeared a thick orange paste over Lana’s leg. Lana sat there in silence as the other champions entered the ring and exited a short time later, Lana didn’t have much to go off except Bagman’s commentary, and that wasn’t very useful just a few small comments, she didn’t realise it was all over until she heard him say “Our youngest champion was the quickest” indicating that Potter had just finished his dragon.

As he entered the tent McGonagall, Hagrid, and Moody all started to congratulate him, Lana let out a small scoff, she couldn’t believe of blatant they were being with their favouritism. Once Potter was being dealt with, McGonagall said a final “well done”. Lana let out a quiet…

“Really?” Apparently, it wasn’t that quiet as Hagrid rounded on her.

“What was that Rowle?” he said in his gruff voice.

“Nothing.” Lana said.

“You definitely said something, so what was it?” Moody said and he and McGonagall also both turned to her.

“Nothing, it’s just why does, Potter get all that congratulations and I get nothing?” She said it without realising what she was doing, but the damage was already done.

“I did congratulate you” McGonagall said indignantly.

Lana’s rage was once again beginning to swell. “No you didn’t, you just sent me straight of to Pomfrey, and that’s not even the worst of it, I have not been acknowledged by anyone off the Hogwarts staff all day, and you all knew that I’d be facing off with a dragon, I had to walk down here by myself, and hear Fleur and Viktor get pep talks from their Heads, and Potter get one from you,” she gestured to McGonagall, “whilst I got nothing.”

The three of them just stared at her and she continued.

“It also doesn’t help that the only time that I’ve been acknowledged as a champion by any of you is to be told that just because I don’t have to sit exams doesn’t mean I can slack off, even though I’ve worked ten times harder since I got picked and you all know it.” she almost spat the last word, she had been pushed over the edge, even though she had learned that Potter didn’t really want any of the favouritism doesn’t mean she didn’t get to call it out.

“That’s quite enough Miss Rowle.” Hagrid said angrily. Lana had a thought.

“Would you be treating me like this if I was a Hufflepuff?” She asked.

“What?” knowing they had heard it and were just shocked by it she continued,

“Or a Ravenclaw, or even a Gryffindor, if I didn’t come from the house that you have a clear prejudiced against, would you be treating me like this?” She looked at them, they were all still in a state of shock.

“Think really hard, because I’m the champion that the cup chose and I followed all the rules, so if you have a problem with it being me, then that must mean that you have a problem with a quarter of the students you teach every day, and that doesn’t fly well with me.” She got up and went out into the open air letting them stew with her final statement.


	16. Friendship?

Lana was stood outside on her own letting the fresh air, and the relief of the first task being finished, wash over her. Maybe she had gone a bit too hard on those professors, and having a go at them was certainly not the way to make them like her, but what did they expect, if they were going to ignore her, she was going to make sure she wasn’t ignored. She only got a couple of minutes of peace before her friends were all running towards her.

“Lana, you did it!”

“Are you alright?”

“Have you still got your legs?” Lana let out a laugh at the last question.

“Of course, I’ve still got my legs.” She called over as they made their way down to her. Once they had reached her, Sam was pulling her into a bone crushing hug. “Lana you were brilliant.” She breathed. “Absolutely brilliant.”

“Thanks, Sammy.” Lana said squeezing her back.

“What you did, was amazing, a disillusionment charm, Lana, do you have any idea how difficult that spell is?” Diane rambled.

“Yeah, it took me ages to get it.” Lana said as brushed back the bits of her hair that had fallen in from her plaits.

“We all caught on to what you were doing pretty quickly.” Ava said, her hair looked like she had been pulling at it and her nails looked severely bitten.

“Yeah,” Lucy laughed, “everyone except Mand, she was yelling for you to ‘just get out from those rocks’ three minutes after you had already started climbing.”

“Aw, Mand” Lana cooed turning to Mandy.

“I was very stressed, okay?” she said, jokingly looking at the ground.

“Also, that sign was amazing, how did you guys not get in trouble for that?” Lana looked over to Ava who she could tell was definitely the mastermind behind the banner.

“We did, we just ignored it.” She said simply.

Lana was about commend them for their commitment when Ludo Bagman popped his head round the tent entrance,

“Ah, there you are miss Rowle, now if you could just come in here for a moment, I need to fill you in on your next task and then you can get back to your friends.”

“You guys go ahead and I’ll catch you up” she said looking back at the group. They all nodded and headed back to the castle. Lana slipped back into the tent, she looked over to Potter, he smiled at her, she smiled back.

“Good one, Potter.” She said quietly but she was secretly very annoyed that he was doing so well.

“You too.” He said, and he looked like he really meant it.

“Well done all of you.” Bagman said bouncing on his feet once again. “Now just a quick few words, you’ve got a long break before the second task, which will take place at nine-thirty on the morning of February the twenty fourth- but we’re giving you a thing to think about in the meantime! If you look down at those eggs, you’re holding you will see that they open… see the hinges there? You need to solve the clue inside the egg- because it will tell you what the second task is and enable you to prepare for it! All clear? Sure? Well, off you go, then!”

Lana made her way back towards the castle, egg under her arm, when she heard her name being called.

“Hey, Lana we need to talk to you!” She turned round to see the Weasley twins accompanied by one of their older brothers that had already left.

“And why should I let you?” she said folding her arms over her chest, “I don’t know if you guys noticed, but just didn’t let a Swedish Short Snout walk all over me, I’m certainly not going to let two redheads who are failing potions do it either.”

The oldest of the three let out a laugh. “Who’s your friend Fred?” Fred looked like he was about to say something when Lana cut in.

“I’m not their friend, if they want my friendship, they can earn it.” she said in a hard tone. “and so far, they haven’t done anything to earn it.” she said turning around.

“Nice, you tell them.” The oldest laughed.

“Haven’t you got a letter to write?” George asked, clearly annoyed.

“Oh, yeah!”, The oldest said, Lana did not, know, or care about, his name. “Gotta, dash!” and with that he ran up to the castle. Lana was about to follow in the same direction when Fred spoke again.

“So, how do we earn it?”

“What?” Lana said turning around to face them again.

“You said, we have to earn your friendship, how do we do that?” George said, looking over to her.

“Yeah, dude, we’ve been dicks-”

“Understatement” Lana muttered.

“Yeah, well, you’re a nice person, and you’re not like other Slytherins-”

“Woah, woah, woah, I am like other Slytherins, I’m exactly like other Slytherins, what I’m not like is what you guys mould Slytherins to be in your heads, if you want to be my friends that’s an important lesson you’re going to have to learn.” Lana said leaning back slightly.

“Okay, right, and what else?” Fred asked

“Well, I’ve just completed a task, and I have two more.” Lana said after having a sudden thought. “So, why don’t you guys have some too?” Lana said, looking up at them, they looked terrified and Lana realised why.

“Don’t worry, I won’t make you guys fight dragons or anything, just small things,” she said unfolding her arms, “for instance, your first task is… you guys have to each compliment a, different, Slytherin every day, for the next two weeks.”

At this the twins both recoiled and pulled faces of pure disgust.

“Alright, some ground rules, it doesn’t have to be anyone who gives you a hard time, like Malfoy and that lot, but it also can’t be me.”

“But you’re like the only one we know.” Fred said indignity.

“Well, then I guess you guys are going to make some acquaintances, aren’t you?” Lana said turning around. “Oh, and one more thing, to make sure you guys actually do it, it has to be in front of me or one of my friends.” And with that Lana made her way back up to the castle.

Once Lana had reached the Slytherin common room, she was once again met with a party in her honour, there was music, food, drink and just and just an overall nice atmosphere. Lana, smiled and chatted with everyone who started a conversation with her, but her main aim was to find Alex.

She ran into Tom first and they chatted for a bit, it was mainly Tom complimenting her on her performance and telling her that the judging was unfair.

“Bagman and Karkaroff, are so biased to Potter and Krum, them getting tens was ridiculous.”

“Yeah, but at least Bagman had the common decency to actually give me a good score, Karkaroff gave me five.”

“You should’ve heard us Slytherins when that happened, we all lost it, you were so much better than five Lana.” Lana smiles at his fury. She turned around and saw Alex chatting to one of the girls in his year,

“Thanks Tom, I’ll see you around.” She said and she turned around and headed over to Alex. As soon as Alex saw her, he was pulling her into a bone crushing hug.

“You were amazing, I’ve already written to mum and dad, to tell them how good you were, I’m not sure if you’ve done all of the calculating but Potter and Krum are on 40 points and you’re on 39 so its really close and if I’m being honest you should be in the lead it’s just favouritism for the famous ones.” He rambled.

“Merlin Alex, how long have you been waiting to tell me all this.” Lana laughed pulling out of the hug and holding on to his shoulders.

“Ages.” He breathed. Lana laughed, she was about to say something, when she felt herself being lifted in to the air by a couple of seventh year boys. She sat on their shoulders, everyone cheered her, she looked down as her egg was passed around the room and back to her.

“Go on Rowle, open it!” Someone called. Lana obliged, she found the hinges and clicked them open, she regretted it instantly, the egg let out a horrible and never-ending screech. Lana felt herself being dropped to the ground as the boys that were holding her up scrambled to cover their ears. As she hit the floor the egg rolled out of her hands and along the room, she crawled towards it, the painful screams still filling the room. Once she was close enough Lana pounced on the egg, closing it and stopping the noise.

“What the hell was that?” Someone called.

“How was that a clue?” yelled another. But Lana was too focused on the watery scene outside of the wall length windows, it seemed a lot more unsettled than it had been a few minutes ago, like the noise of the egg had triggered movement.

“I think that’s enough of a party for one night everyone.” Called a seventh-year prefect.

Everyone filtered up to bed, Lana was now only realising how tired she was, she changed out of her robes, had a quick shower to wash of all of the dirt sweat, and in some areas blood. Once she was fresh and clean, she got under her blankets and was asleep instantly.

*

Lana was the last one at breakfast that morning, her friends were sat at the Hufflepuff table, reading what looked to be a news article, they did not look happy. Lana sat down next to them, they all turned to her, with looks of sorry for some reason.

“What?” she asked as she grabbed some food. They all looked at each other and Ava began to speak.

“You know that awful reporter woman, Skeeter, who painted Potter to be a cry baby about his parents?”

“Yeah,” Lana said sceptically.

“Well now it’s your turn.” Ava said as she pushed the article towards Lana. Lana took it and began to read it aloud.

“The name Rowle is circling all the tabloids at the moment, as seventeen year old Alana Rowle was picked to be the rightful Hogwarts Champion for the Triwizard Tournament, but this won’t be the first time you’ve heard that name, those of you old enough to remember the dark days, will remember the infamous death eaters Thorfinn and Maureen Rowle, and if you’re smart, you will have read those names and come to the correct conclusion that the new face of Hogwarts is in fact a child of death eaters. You might wonder how could Hogwarts let a child of such horrible people represent them in such a prestigious competition, well you would be thinking the same as me. However, my questions were soon answered, as I began to hear rumours from students. As you all know Harry Potter, the boy who lived, has found himself in the competition, when he shouldn’t be, now the main theory is that he put his own name in, but these new rumours I have heard could put Miss Rowle in the position of blame, as it states that she put her name and Potter’s name under her parents instruction to carry out a death eater plot…” Lana couldn’t read anymore she was furious, who had given her this information? And, what made her think that it was okay to spread it when it was just a theory. When Lana realised that the only person to mention that she could have put Harry’s name in, was Harry.

She got up, not listening to her friend’s yells. Once she had made it down to the Gryffindor table with Ava and Lucy on her heels, she slammed the article in front of Potter and just said…

“Read.” Potter began to read the article aloud, and the rest of the Gryffindors leaned in to listen, they all looked more and more uncomfortable as the article went on, once it got to the bit about her putting Harry’s name in Lana took the article back. They all sat there in silence, Hermione spoke first.

“Lana I’m so sorry, who would’ve said something like that?”

“That’s why I’m here.” Lana said, turning to Potter, “because, as far as I remember, Potter was the only one to accuse me of it, so did you spread it to others or just tell Skeeter directly?”

Potter looked terrified he opened his mouth several times to speak but nothing came out, the Gryffindors all looked at him shocked he had clearly not told them about what he had said.

“Wait Harry you said that?” Hermione asked looking at him with pure disappointment.

“Yes, but I didn’t mean it, I told you I didn’t mean it.” he said turning back to Lana. 

Ron spoke up.

“Harry wouldn’t have said anything to her, she’s writing awful things about him too, it was probably someone who came up with it themselves, you do have that kind of reputation.”

“Ron!” the twins said in unison. But Ron was right, she did have that kind of reputation. Lana pondered it for a minute.

“Look, I’m sorry it happened, but you have to understand none of us would ever do it, it was probably a bored Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff who wanted to stir up some drama.” Ron continued.

Lana thought about this for a moment, she didn’t full believe them yet, but didn’t want to be seen arguing with them anymore.

“Let’s go.” She turned to Lucy and Ava. They began to walk away, when a name was called, but this time it wasn’t Lana’s it was Ava’s, they turned back around to see the twins leaning forward.

“You look really nice today.” Fred said with a smile.

“And, your hair has curled really well.” George said.

Ava looked confused, looked to Lana, Lana saw the cogs working and the realisation flood over Ava’s face.

“Oh, this is your stupid thing isn’t it?” She said looking between Lana and the twins.

“Yep,” Lana said, and the girls walked back to their table.

*

The weeks dragged on; the twins kept their word the whole time. From first year boys, to seventh years girls, a whole range of Slytherins where complimented, Lana’s personal favourite was when they had told Alex that he was an excellent quidditch player and that his hair was a nice colour. Lana had a lot on her plate, a few idiots had actually believed that she was working under death eater influence, so she had been working ten times harder just to prove them wrong. Luckily enough she didn’t think she was going to have a problem with Skeeter again.

It was a few days after the article had come out, Lana had been on her way to care of magical creature, when she had run into the woman. Skeeter seemed oddly ecstatic to have run into the person she had just accused of being a death eater.

“Ah, Miss Rowle, I wonder if I could a statement about my most recent article?”

“Yeah sure,” Lana had said in a tone of fake sweetness. She turned to Skeeter, and let the kind look on her face change to deadpan.

“If, you want to keep this little death eater narrative you’ve made up in your head, that’s fine, I’d just be careful, because yes my parents were death eaters, but now their highly respected magical lawyers with a lot of different connections within the ministry, I wouldn’t want you losing your job over a silly little article.” She had then left a rather terrified looking Skeeter and made her way down to Hagrid’s cabin.

She had still not managed to figure out her egg, every time she opened it, it had just screamed at her. She hadn’t tried it since the week after the first task, she would get back to it… at some point.

The final problem Lana was facing was a lot less important, for her not dying in the second task, but definitely very important for her social life finding a date to the Yule ball. She was a champion so she must have one. Everyone else seemed already have one. Lucy and Sam and mutually agreed to go as friends, Lucy because she wasn’t comfortable asking a girl as like an actual date, and Sam because her, sort of Boyfriend person, was a muggle back home. Mandy was going with a cute Hufflepuff boy ‘as friends’ but the group all knew that it was more than that. Ava’s parents had arranged for her to go with Adrian Pucey, a very attractive boy who was in their year and on the quidditch team, he didn’t have much personality, but he seemed to like Ava, so she wasn’t too bothered. Diane had been asked by a boy from Durmstrang who seemed nice, so she was all set.

Lana was the only one in her group without one, not for lack of options, about half the boys in her year, and the year above had asked her, even a few boys from the year below had asked her. But she had turned them all down, none of them fit her parent’s standards. Normally she wouldn’t let her parent’s expectations dictate her decisions, but considering this was an important event and someone would definitely be watching her, she didn’t want to do anything that would be fed back to her parents. She wasn’t completely dateless, Tom had been turning girls down left right and centre. He and Lana had come to the conclusion that their parents would be forcing them to go together, so had both been avoiding getting dates and having to cancel on them.

The confirmation for that came about two weeks before the Yule ball. Lana was sat at the Slytherin table for breakfast with Alexus as she wanted to talk to her about what she was wearing to the ball. The conversation was relaxed until a voice came from behind Lana.

“Longreen, you’re very pretty.”

“And you’re very good at charms.”

They turned to see Fred and George walking up towards them.

“I do believe, correct me if I’m wrong Fred, that that is two weeks of complementing Slytherins.”

“You are not wrong, George, it has been two weeks.”

Alexus began to laugh, “Well, thank you lads.” She said brushing some her hair from her face.

“So, Lana what’s our next challenge?” Lana though for a moment, she was trying to find a way to show them that not all Slytherins were Malfoy, it worked very well so far, she had seen the twins actually holding conversations with Slytherins a lot more, moral had also risen a lot in the common rooms, the Slytherins were getting used to having the twins be nice to them and she didn’t want that to change.

“You, have to spend at least five meals at the Slytherin table.” She said.

“Alright.” They seemed a lot less reluctant this time around. “As long as, Malfoy and that lot don’t give us a hard time.”

“Don’t worry ever since I’ve become champion, I’ve had that lot wrapped around my figure.” Lana paused for a moment. “In fact, you can start now.” And she gestured for the two of them to sit down. They obliged and Lana continued her conversation with Alexus.

“So, what was I saying?” She asked, looking over at her.

“Yule Ball, outfits.”

“Oh right. Yeah, well my mum got me dress robes for my birthday, so I’m all set for an outfit and if you’re okay to do my makeup, then I think I’m all set.”

“Apart from a date.” Alexus scoffed.

“Yeah, well, my parents write every three weeks, and I’m due a letter today, so I’ll probably have my date in a matter of minutes.”

“Wait, I’m confused, why do you need a letter from your parents to get a date.” Fred asked, looking so puzzled.

“Aw, you poor innocent child.” Lana joked. “You see pureblood parents that don’t like their kids mixing with others, tend to arrange these sorts of things for their kids.” She explained.

“So, you don’t get pick anything?” George asked.

“Well, I picked my friends, but as far as my parents are concerned, I’m only friends with purebloods, and it’s going to stay that way.” She said the last part whilst pointing a fork at the twins.

“Your secret is safe with us.” Fred said with his hand up.

“Good.”

“So, is this guy, is he going to be your guy for the rest of your life?” George asked.

“Unfortunately.” Lana sighed.

“Shut up Lan we all know, you’re being set up with Tom, and he’s like the best catch in the pure blood community.

“We don’t know that for sure yet Lex.”

“Well, we’re about to find out.” Alexus said pointing up to where the owls were starting to flood in. Lana scanned the room and saw Hera swooping gracefully towards Lana; however, she was too focused on the owl behind Hera, it looked very dishevelled and like it could die at any moment.

“That’s not your owl is it Lex?” Lana asked.

“No, he’s ours.” Fred said gloomily. “And he’s useless.”

That was an understatement, the owl didn’t even make it to them at them at the table, he fell to the ground about halfway through the hall and George had to go and get him.

As he did Lana opened her letter. She skimmed over all their normal reminders about etiquette, when she hit the paragraph she wanted, it read…

Now, the Yule Ball is approaching, and we are sure that you have had lines of young men asking you. However, we ask that you go with our Thomas Stevens, as he is an old family friend, and being frank, the person we intend for you to wed to keep the pureblood lines. It was around this time that we were told that, we were to be wed. You must understand the importance of this marriage and what it will mean to us and his parents. Use the Ball to really get to know him, and with any luck you’ll end up like us.

Lana looked up at Alexus, she was so filled with emotions she didn’t notice George sit down with his owl and two parcels.

“So…?” Lana nodded at her and she squealed.

“Oh, Merlin Lana this is so great.” She looked down the table in search for Tom, “Hey Stevens, you heard the news?”

“No, what is it?” He called back,

“Meet your, wife!” Lex called pointing down to Lana.

“Oh, really have your parents told you?” he directed this question to Lana,

“Yeah they’ve just said so in this letter,” she called back, “and you were right, you’re to take me to the Ball, pick me up at seven, champions have to be there early.”

“Got it!” and with that he went back to his meal.

“Right, then we’ve had a meal here, should we head back to the common room to open these.” George said in an unreadable tone. Lana went to say something, but George was already dragging a reluctant Fred away from the table and towards the doors.

“What’s, his problem?” Lana asked, watching them go.

“I have one idea.” Lex said in a coy tone.

“What?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“No, it’s really not.”

“Merlin Lan, you’re so oblivious sometimes, he’s clearly into you.” Lana processed what had just been said and decided it was stupid,

“No he isn’t, don’t be ridiculous.”

“Of course he is.”

“Well, he’s definitely has a weird way of showing it.” Lana said, he couldn’t be into her as far as she was concerned, he had just viewed her as someone who helped him with potions until a few weeks ago.

“The thing is, I don’t think he has, when was the last time he actually said something mean to you directly?” Lana thought really hard, there had been a lot of times where Fred had said something directly mean and he hadn’t done anything, but if they were talking about just him,

“I guess not since the train.”

“Exactly, that was ages ago.” Lex said.

“Yeah, but he’s still a second-hand ass, he just lets Fred be an ass and doesn’t do anything.” Lana reasoned.

“Yeah, but he still, never did it himself, and always tried to apologise, even if he did go about it in the wrong way, and I don’t think we have had a single incident at all since the first task, and I’m not just talking about you, I’m talking about the house as a whole you’ve clearly had a really good impact.” Lana thought this over, Lex had a point, she hadn’t seen anyone giving Slytherins a hard time since the task, and he had always tried to apologise, and there was a time period before her name had been called, where everything had been cool, between them.

“Not to mention how he acts when he thinks you aren’t looking, I’ve caught him staring at you a few times, and he seemed extra concerned when you were fighting the dragon. Haven’t you ever seen him act different around you, y’know blushed a bit, or been closer than the average human would be?”

Lana thought about when he had pulled her closer to tease Ron or how in every potions session, he had always stood a bit closer than Fred, or stayed a bit longer to have a conversation.

“I guess, yeah.” She said, this was starting to be more real, and she did not like it.

“And, you have to admit, those feelings were reciprocated at one point.”

“No, I’ve thought about this, and I don’t think they were, I think, that a guy who was normally a dick to me started being nice, and my emotions were so surprised by this, that they went haywire and mistook ‘oh this is nice’ for ‘you have feelings for this person’, I don’t think deep down I ever actually liked him.” Lana had been thinking about this a lot and that was the conclusion she had come to.

“And besides, even if I did like him, I’m not going to go, ‘oh you’ve been nice for two weeks so, now I’m down to date you’, I’m going to need way more time than that.”

“That’s fair, and I never said anything about dating him, you’ve just got engaged remember?”


	17. The Egg’s Secret

It was now a week before the Yule Ball, and the atmosphere around the school had completely changed, the holidays had officially started, but of course barley anyone had gone home, except for portion of first and second years, as they were not permitted to go to the ball without a date from the older years, a fair amount of third years were staying as they had been asked by fourth and fifth years.

Everyone was very excited about the Ball, but people were starting to get nervous about embarrassing themselves, the teachers had not stopped going on about how to behave to ensure the school looked good, and this definitely had stuck with the students a bit too much. Lana and Tom weren’t worried, they had been trained for these sorts of events since birth and knew exactly how to act. They had been getting on well at the moment, but ever since Lana’s parent’s letter Tom had been acting weird. Lana wasn’t sure what she felt about Tom at the moment, she loved him as a friend and had definitely loved him as more than that at one point, but what Lex had told her at breakfast that one day had really stuck with her, she still wasn’t sure if she believed it yet. Lana couldn’t believe that she was letting boys confuse her so much. She was marrying Tom by her parents wishes, she was sure that those old feelings would come back at the ball, besides what the point of marrying for love anyway?

Lana was sat on the floor of the Slytherin common room, it was around three in the morning so she was alone. Most of the lights had gone out so her only source of light was a small candle to the side. Books were scattered all around the room, she was trying to figure out the egg. Normal people would have changed into comfy clothes if they knew that they were going to be up late, but this was Lana so naturally she was still in a black turtleneck, green tartan skirt, black tights and heeled boots. Her hair had been growing at a steady rate and she could finally tie it into a messy bun as she studied countless different books on, well that was the thing she didn’t know, she had no idea what noise was so she had just grabbed different books on anything to do with magical sound. None of them were useful.

Lana was starting to get a bit stressed about all of it, she just could not figure it out. She got up and started pacing along the common room, was it coded? Would it only make noise at a certain time? In all of her fretful pacing, Lana accidently knocked over her egg. The hinges must have been lose, because as soon as it hit the floor it opened and began to scream it’s awful sound at her as it rolled to the other end of the common room and hit the tall windows that looked out into the great lake. Lana rushed after it, covering her ears, praying this wouldn’t wake anyone up. Once she reached it, she bent down to pick it up and close it. Once the noise had stopped and the egg was safely planted under her arm, Lana let out a deep sigh. It was practically pitch black at this side of the room. 

She looked out into the black depths of the lake and to her surprise saw movement, large shapes were moving along the windows. Lana knew about the mermaids but she had never known them to be so agitated, she watched them go for a minute before having a thought. This was not the first time the water had been disturbed after hearing the sounds of the egg, the same thing had happened the night after the first task. So, what if it was linked.

She tested her theory by lifting the egg up to the window and opening it. It illuminated the room, and let out its haunting screech, she stood there holding it up. She was right, it only took a minute for a large group of mermaids to start circling it all trying to reach it.

“It’s mermish,” she muttered to herself. She instantly closed her egg and rushed back to her books. She found the book it was looking for; it was a book on different languages. She found the chapter on mermish and began to read,

The ancient language of mermish is well known to be difficult to understand. The only way for a human to understand the language of the mermaids, without being fluent themselves, is to be underwater with them.

Lana closed the book, she had read all she needed to.

“I need to listen to it underwater.” Lana though for a moment, where could she listen to the egg, without being disturbed? The prefect bathroom, no one would be there at the moment because of curfew, it was the perfect time to go.

Lana grabbed her egg and headed out of the portrait hole, she was slightly worried about getting caught, but being a prefect had other perks apart from getting a special bathroom, Lana had done so many patrols that she knew Filch’s route of by heart and she knew that he wouldn’t be coming anywhere near her tonight.

As she made her way to the bathroom, her boots made that satisfying clunk sound against the stone floors of the castle. She was using her wand to illuminate the corridors, it took her a little while to get from the dungeons to the floor she needed to be at, Lana had never really had the chance to take in the castle at night it was quite beautiful, the pale moonlight, reflected off the suits of armour and the portraits, were all soundly asleep. She continued her walk and let her mind wander; she was thinking about everything that had been going on with her at the moment. She was mainly thinking about where her feelings lay, even if she did have small feeling for George, she was not going to act on them, she was engaged for merlin’s sake. But Lana was getting the feeling that she wouldn’t be for long. Tom had been acting super weird, Lana had known that he had wanted to go against his parents wishes and become an Auror. But she was now getting the feeling that as soon as he got out of Hogwarts, he was planning on cutting ties with his parents, and that would probably mean her family as well. She couldn’t see him cutting all ties, he’d probably still write to Ava and attempt to keep in touch with Lana, but she couldn’t see him staying in the arranged marriage. Lana understood Tom wanting to cut off his parents, but couldn’t see herself doing it. It was easier for Tom, his parents were awful, they had kids for sake of keeping pureblood lines, and had never really loved them. Lana’s parents hadn’t been saints by any means, but they had been enough, and she couldn’t see her life without them in it. which why she had to get rid any feelings for anyone that they wouldn’t approve of, family came first.

She had reached the bathroom, she muttered the password and slipped into the room, bolting the door behind her. The potions room had always been Lana’s favourite room in the castle but this was definitely a close second. It had sleek marble walls and floors, the bath was practically a pool, and hundreds of different taps with different bubble mixtures in them lined the edges. Lana put the egg down next to some of the fluffiest towels Hogwarts had. She turned on her favourite two taps, one let out lavender scented bubbles, and the other let out rose infused water. As the bath began to fill Lana began to get undressed, it only took a couple of minutes for the whole pool to be filled with, soft smelling bubbles and rose petals. Lana got in and just relaxed letting the warm water wash all of her stress away, she should’ve done this ages ago. After about fifteen minutes Lana took the egg and a deep breath and went under the water with it, once under the water she opened her eyes, and clicked the eggs hinges, her theory was right, instead of screaming at her the egg began to let out a wistful song,

‘Come seek us where our voices sound,

We cannot sing above the ground,

And while you’re searching ponder this:

We have taken what you’ll sorely miss,

An hour long you’ll have to look,

To recover what we took,

But past that hour the prospect’s black,

Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.’

Lana came back up from the water spluttering and coughing up bubbles. She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes, and thought about what the song had said, come seek us where our voices sound, she was going to have to go into the black lake, to rescue a treasure of hers, but what would it be, she guessed that didn’t matter as long as she got it. She just had to find something that would enable her to breathe underwater for an hour. Lana stayed thinking in the bath, but thought of nothing. She decided to call it a night after another fifteen minutes. She got out dried herself off and chucked her clothes back on. She made it back to the common room without any problems, she cleaned up her books and went to bed.

*

The next morning, the group was all sat at the Slytherin table, with the twins. This was the twins third meal at the table, and things were already getting so better. Fred and Dot were setting a bet on what band would be playing the Yule Ball. George was in deep discussion with Lex and Sam about quidditch moves. Lucy, Mandy and Kathrine were chatting about their plans for Christmas at Hogwarts, and Lana and Diane were having a hushed conversation about how to breathe underwater. Diane had been the only one Lana had told about the task so far.

“Well, a bubblehead charm should do it, can you do those?”

“Not yet, but I’ve got like two months to practice it.” Lana whispered

“Well there you go!” Diane whispered back.

“Why are we whispering?” A new voice said, Lana and Diane both jumped out of their skins.

“Merlin Ava!” Lana said, taking very deep breaths. “Where did you come from?”

“The common room.”

“Yeah I know that.”

The group had all drawn their attention to Lana and Diane as they had made a lot of noise,

“What was all that about?” Fred asked.

“Nothing,” Lana said quickly, pulling her hair behind her shoulder.

Lex, sensing that Lana wanted to keep that conversation private, changed the subject.

“So, everyone got Yule Ball dates yet?” she asked looking around the group. There was a small chorus of “Yep” apart from Fred who said a very loud and proud

“Yes.”

“Wait who are you going with?” Lana asked looking at him.

“Angelina.” He said very proudly.

“Really?” Lana was shocked “She finally said yes to you?”

“What do you mean finally?” Fred asked indignantly.

“Well, you’ve been pining after her since September.” Lana said casually.

“How did you know that?” Fred asked as everyone let out a small laugh. Lana turned to George, who looked like this was the best moment of his life.

“Was that supposed to be a secret?” She asked

“Kind of”

“Sorry.”

George let out a hearty laugh. “Nah it’s alright, he had to face the truth at some point.”

“Oh, did I?” Fred asked in a sarcastic tone.

“I mean yeah, everyone in Gryffindor already knew, Lucy, back me up here.”

“Oh yeah, everybody knew.” She said not even looking up from her food.

“See?” George said looking at Fred.

“Fine.” He, said in a tone of mock annoyance.

Lana got up, “I’m going to have some tea with Alex, I’ll catch you guys around.” She made her way down the table to find her brother. She found him sat with his friends.

“Beat it.” She said, they all got up and went down to talk to some of the girls in Alex’s.

“Morning sunshine.” Alex said sarcastically.

“Oh, shut up.” Lana said pouring some tea for the both of them. She moved so that she was sat cross legged on her bench and held her mug in her lap.

“So, how you doing with the whole arranged marriage thing?” Alex asked taking a sip of his tea.

“Alright, but I just don’t see Tom holding out, and as much as I want him to get away from his parents and do what he wants, he’s the only guy I’ve liked that mum and dad liked too, and now I’m going to get set up with someone I hardly know.” Lana rambled.

“Okay, first off, until he’s actually said anything to you don’t assume that he wants to pull out, and second off, you’ve got other prospects.” He nodded his head down the table to where George was teasing Dot with a muffin that was out of her reach.

“No, absolutely not, mum and dad would kill me!” Lana was looking at him incredulously.

“Have you ever considered doing what Tom’s considering, just cutting ties as soon as you can?”

“No, not really, well maybe, but it’s hard, Tom’s parents are dicks, ours have kind of been alright.” Lana said, taking a sip from her ornate teacup.

“I’m not staying, there’s no way I can keep up the pureblood lines, so what’s the point?” Alex said looking up to the sky like ceiling, as if he wanted to just fly out of it and start his new life.

“I know that, I’m taking that into account with my decision.”

“Why would you?” Alex said casually looking into his mug.

“Well, I just think mum and dad would take you leaving easier, if they still had me following all the rules.” Lana said, she had thought that even since she found out Alex was gay, she had always been super protective. She thought that if she had her fun in these years, then she could just settle down with whoever her parents set her up with and be the kid that complied, so that they would forget the kid that didn’t.

“No, Lana you can’t.” Alex said looking directly at her. “You can’t give up your life to make mine better, why did you never tell me about this plan?”

“It never really seemed relevant until now.” She said plainly. “I don’t mind, as much as my feelings wander, I couldn’t see myself breaking away from them, anyway.”

“Well, I still say you give it a go.” Alex said, “You can’t wash your life away for them, Lana, you just can’t.”

“I’ll think about it,” Lana said, topping her cup a bit, “anyway, that wasn’t what I came to talk to you about, I came to talk to you about the egg, I figured out the clue.”

“Really,” Alex said looking very alert all of a sudden, “how?”

Lana dove into an explanation about the mermaids, how she had opened the egg underwater and the song it had sung. And what Diane had suggested.

“Right,” Alex said after Lana had finished, “Okay so, a bubble head charm seems like the best shout.” He stirred he tea with a small spoon. “My one thing is, that this task is happening in February, so the lake will be super cold, we wouldn’t want you to get down there and get too cold so you can’t do anything, I’d find a thermal spell to keep you warm, just in case.”

“That’s a really good idea, thanks.”

They stayed chatting for a bit, mainly about their plans for the Yule Ball, until Diane came over and asked Lana if she wanted to go practice the bubble head charm. Lana looked to Alex,

“Go,” he said waving his hand, “I don’t forget what I said, thermal spell to keep you warm.”


	18. The Yule Ball

Lana awoke on Christmas morning to a stack of presents at the end of her bed. She looked around and saw that everyone else was still asleep, normally she would tip-toe and try to avoid waking them up, but this was Christmas, so Lana got up, opened her trunk and slammed it closed again. Everyone shot up instantly looking confused but not scared.

“Merry Christmas!” Lana called. She got a chorus of it back and everyone began to open their presents.

Lana had got each of the girls a small necklace with a snake charm,

“Something for us to wear in our last year.” She explained, the girls all loved them.

Lana had gotten, an anklet with a small goblet from Dot, she said it was to commemorate Lana being the 1994-95 Hogwarts Champion. Lana loved it and put it on instantly. Alexus had gotten her a new book called “Potions: The Stuff That They Don’t Tell You.”

“It’s full of little tricks you can do every time you make a potion, and a few little recipes, my dad found it on one of his business trips to America.”

Kathrine had given her a new collar for nova that also had a small goblet on it. Lana had then grabbed Nova from the ground and placed it on him, she had then kept him on her lap for the rest of the morning. Ava had gotten Lana a gorgeous necklace with a small amethyst rock at the bottom that looked like mini galaxy.

“I saw the colour of your dress robes and thought this would match.” Lana thanked them all, and then turned to the present from her parents. It was a small box wrapped neatly in brown paper with white string. She opened it to find a magic polaroid camera that took picture that moved just like the portraits.

“Everyone smile.” She called, the group all leaned in and she took the photo, it came out of the top of the camera, it looked adorable, the group in the photo all smiled at her and then started having a conversation. 

“Well thank you everyone, I’m going to find Alex.”

“Wait Lan, there’s one more for you.” Ava piped up.

Lana looked down, Ava was right there was one more unopened present, it was bulky, but light. She couldn’t see a note anywhere so she just decided to open it, the girls all leaned in waiting to see what it was. Lana ripped open the package to see a knitted jumper. It was a lovely shade of emerald green and had a large golden L at the centre of it. She pulled it over her head, it was extremely comfortable and so warm that Lana almost melted as soon as she put it on. She still had no idea who had given it to her, but it was comfy and she wasn’t complaining.

She made her way down to the common room, and found Alex sitting on one of the sofa’s in his pyjamas, holding a small box in is hands, she plopped down next to him.

“Nice jumper, who’s it from.”

“No idea, no note.”

“Weird.” Alex placed his box in Lana’s lap and she put his parcel at his feet, on the sofa. They exchanged looks and began ripping open wrapping paper. Lana found a framed photo that looked like it was several years old, it was the two of them holding onto a toy broom stick for dear life and grinning into the camera, you could tell it was old as Alex had still got some small dragon pox scars and Lana’s front teeth were missing.

“Alex, I love it.” Lana said as the two of them fell of the broom and began to laugh. Alex was too busy ogling his new copy of “Quidditch and Everything you’re doing Wrong.” To notice what she had said at first,

“Hm, oh yeah, I found it this summer and saved it.” Lana pulled him into a hug and then went up stairs to grab her gifts for the rest of her friends, she also grabbed her camera. She was halfway out of her dormitory door, when she realised that she still had her pyjama bottoms on. She chucked on a pair of joggers and made her way down to the great hall.

She found her friends all sat at the Slytherin table waiting for her.

“Come on Lan we’ve been waiting.”

“Sorry, I was exchanging gifts with Alex.” She said sitting down.

“Nice, jumper.” Lucy laughed.

“Thanks,” Lana said apprehensively, “why are you saying it like that?”

“Do you not know who its from?” Lucy asked.

“No, there wasn’t a note, why do you know?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” She said, Lana was weirded out, but decided to ignore it. they all got to opening presents. It was a really nice atmosphere and Lana didn’t want it to end, but it did. After about an hour of gift exchanges, the girls were left with the largest pile of wrapping paper they had ever seen. Lana used a quick spell to clean it up, and as she did, the Weasley clan, Potter and Granger all walked into the Hall, Lana looked at them and noticed that her jumper looked exactly like all of theirs, she turned to Lucy.

“Is, that what you, meant?” She said in a panicked tone. “Is this a Weasley thing?”

“Yeah, it happens every year.” Lucy laughed.

“What, the big deal Lan?” Mandy asked. “It’s a fun tradition, that they want you to be a part of, I personally think it’s really cute.”

“But what if it’s not meant to be cute? what if this a prank? What if they never actually wanted to be my friends? What if-” Lana began to ramble, but Sam cut her off,

“Lana, chill, it’s just them being harmlessly friendly,” she said in a soothing voice, “you’ve got to let this fear go, I understand that they have been horrible to you in the past, but its been months, and they have been so nice recently, they’ve been sitting at the table more often than not, and I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but they haven’t stopped complimenting Slytherins even though that task finished weeks ago.”

Lana nodded quietly, she had noticed that, but since the task had ended they had started complementing her as well, just small things, like her outfit or her aptitude for charms, it was always nice to hear their voices say something that wasn’t a comment about her house, to be fair to them it had been ages since that had happened. Sam was right, she needed to relax and accept that was all in the past. That didn’t mean she was going to forget it.

“Why don’t, you go over and talk to them, just to chat, and reassure yourself that this has not all been a conspiracy to embarrass you.” Mandy suggested in a soft voice.

“Yeah,” Lana, said still a bit shaky, but not scared, it had been the last bit of fear, that was all. She made her way over to the Gryffindor table, she sat down next to Hermione and took a muffin from the centre of the table.

“Morning.” She said, looking down at them, they all looked shocked, apart from George, who looked mildly bewildered, but really happy for some reason.

“Oh, merlin, she’s made you a Weasley jumper, you write her once about a new friend you’ve made who has a kinda shitty homelife sometimes, and she just go’s and claims you.” Fred said looking exasperated.

“Who?” Lana asked looking confused.

“Our mum, she did the same thing with Harry in his first year, you don’t have to wear it.”

“No, I love it it’s so warm, and you write to your mum, about me?” Lana was almost a little worried, what reasoning would they have to write to their mum about her.

“To, be fair, she wrote to us about you first, she actually believed that article skeeter wrote about you and we had to explain that it was full of it and that you are the exact opposite of how skeeter painted you and things just continued from there, she’s actually kind of worried about you.”

Lana was trying to his just how flattered she was, Mrs Weasley was worried about her, and has sort of claimed her. Of course, Lana still regarded Maureen as her mother and always would, but to know that even the Weasley parents had started to accept her without ever meeting her was still a nice comfort.

“Well tell her, that I’m fine, and that she’s got nothing to worry about.” Lana said, she took a bit of her muffin, swallowed it then continues.

“And thank her for the jumper from me, it’s really comfy.” With that she got up and made her way back to her friends at the Slytherin table but Hermione called her back.

“Lana, I’d be careful wearing that, I wouldn’t want your parents finding out about all this and punishing you.”

“Thanks for the concern, Granger but ever since I’ve been named champion and proven that I can take down a Dragon, anyone who would normally feed this stuff back, it absolutely terrified of me, I’ll be fine.”

She and her friends spent the rest of the day, relaxing and emotionally preparing themselves for the Ball. At around three they had decided to go put some actual clothes on and go out for a walk on the snow-covered grounds.

It was brisk out on the grounds, Lana was in a pair of thick jeans, boots with fluffy socks, a jumper, a coat and her Slytherin scarf and she was still freezing. The walk was calm and peaceful, they were chatting about the Ball and how much fun it was going to be, that was until Lana got hit in the face by a snowball. She turned around to see the Weasleys, Harry ad Hermione all staring at her, fear in their eyes.

“Lana, no.” Diane said looking her as if begging her not get involved.

“Lana, YES!” Lucy said looking excited, “lets go, you go left I’ll go right.” Before Lana could say no, Lucy was sprinting down to join the fight, Lana sighed and then followed her, Mandy and Sam on her heels, Diane and Ava took their time, but still joined them. Once they were down there, chaos ensued. It was Lana and her friends against, the twins and that lot. Snowball after snowball was thrown. It didn’t take long for magic to get involved, Ron had hit Lana directly in the nose, so she got out her wand and conjured up about twenty snowballs at once and set them upon him, knocking him over instantly. After that play Lana decided to bow out and took out her camera ready to get the perfect shot. She got quite a few action shots of different people throwing, but the best one easily came when George stopped to smile at the camera and at the exact moment Lana took the photo, he was hit by a snowball that Fred had thrown at him. Lana hadn’t stopped laughing for five minutes because every time she had been able to contain herself, she had looked down at the picture to see a small version of him get pummelled and shake it off.

At about five Hermione had announced that she had needed to go get ready and Ron had then bombarded her with questions. Lana realised that she should probably go and get ready as well.

“I should probably go and get ready as well, Tom’s picking me up at seven.”

“Why are you guys meeting so early?” Ron asked.

“Well, champions have to line the doorways, so I want to get there at least five minutes early,” she turned to Harry, “which you have not obligation to do, it’s just how I’ve been taught.” She paused for a moment to catch her breath; she was still wiped from the snowball fight. “That and, as soon as the actual Ball starts, Tom and I are going to get so little privacy we thought we’d walk through the winter wonderland while everyone else is still getting ready.”

Lana said goodbye to everyone and made her way back to the Slytherin common areas, she went up to her dorm and took a shower. Once out, she began to work on her hair. She magically dried it and looked it the mirror, it was covered in untamed curls, the thing with Lana’s hair is that you could never tell if her hair was curly or just wavy, it never looked the same day to day, sometimes it would be light waves and sometime she would get large corkscrew curls, it honestly varied day to day. She decided to straighten it and then put in some neat waves. Once that had been done, through some light magic, she began to use her wand to pull it back into an elegant bun at the back of her head with several lose strands framing her face, she then summoned a box of lilac petals that matched her dress, her mother had sent her them a week ago, she used a levitating charm to place them at strategic places in her hair, it was only a few petals but she loved the effect they gave. After that was finished Alexus and the others began to come it to get ready themselves.

“Lana, your hair looks amazing!” Dot squealed. “I’d ask for you to do mine, but I’m guessing you’re on s tight schedule.”

“I’ve got time,” that was a lie, she was already running slightly late, but she wasn’t going to let Dot down. She began to style Dot’s hair into to a half up half down with her wand, midway through Alexus began to do her make up. It was rather chaotic but it got the job done quicker than if they only did one thing at a time. Once Lana was fully glammed up, she got her dress robes from where they were hanging on her four-poster bed, she had been sat in a dressing gown the entire time she was getting ready. She had yet to put the outfit on and was excited to see how it looked. She put her feet into it first and then had Ava help her pull it up. She added all of her extra details, Alex’s earrings and Ava’s necklace. She turned to the mirror, it was everything she had wanted, she looked amazing, but she could still tell it was her under all the extravagancies. The robes were beautiful, they were a gorgeous shade of lilac, with a lace cape that was covered in the same petals that were in her hair, they were a soft silk fabric that made it seem like they floated as she moved.

Lana checked the clock, it was five minutes passed seven.

“Oh, I better go, Tom’s probably waiting for me, I’ll see you guys later.”

She made her way down to the common room, and found Tom sat on the sofa with an expensive set of black dress robes on. He looked incredibly handsome, his jet-black hair an organised mess, and his chiselled features were amplified by the colour of his robes. At the sound of Lana’s heels coming down the stairs he turned around.

“You look amazing.” He said, looking almost stunned.

“Thanks, you don’t look too shabby, yourself.” She said making her way to the sofa’s.

“Shall we go for a walk?” he asked.

“Yeah, lets go.”

They walked through the winter wonderland that had been set up, it was full of different flower bushes, and it was littered with fairies that shone through the leaves, illuminating the scene. Lana and Tom, were just chatting about life in general, then the topic changed to the marriage.

“So, Lan, this marriage thing has been weighing on my mind lately.” Lana could see where this was going, she could also see that Tom was very nervous, so she decided to save him the pain,

“Tom.” He hadn’t heard her and kept on rambling.

“I really like you, Lana, I do, it’s just.”

“Tom,” she said it a bit louder.

“It’s just that I-I, well…”

“TOM.” She almost shouted.

“What?”

“I know you want to pull out.” She said softly.

“Wait really, how?” he asked looking shocked.

“You haven’t really been subtle, and you always said you wanted to become an Auror, it wasn’t hard to figure out.” She trailed off with a laugh.

“I guess, yeah, so are you cool with it?”

“Of course I’m cool with it, and there’s not much I could’ve done about it if I wasn’t.”

“I mean you have a point.”

“If you want to run off and cut all ties, I’m fine with that, I’ll just have to deal with whoever my parents replace you with.” Lana said casually.

“Have you not considered going off too?” to asked looking at her concerned.

“I mean I have, but I could never actually do it, they haven’t given me a reason to.”

“Apart from you know, being death eaters.” Said Tom.

“Yeah, well their getting old, and this the whole death eater thing will die out soon.” Lana said this with hope not certainty, the death eater thing would have to die out eventually, her mother had certainly been planning to try and get Lana involved, but Lana was fairly sure she would get a say.

“Lan, you have to understand as soon as you let them marry you off, you’re trapped for life, there’s no escape.” Tom seemed to be begging her to reconsider. Lana thought about that statement for a moment, she had never considered the fact that she would be trapped, mainly because she had never considered pulling out and cutting ties once it happens.

“I’ll think about it.” She said, mainly to get Tom off her back. “but for tonight let’s forget about everything, I want to have the time of my life with one of my best friends.”

“Yeah, let’s.” Tom said looking excited. They made their way back up to the entrance hall. Once they had walked through the main doors, they received a round of gasps and small mutters, most of them were nice, she heard one girl go,

“Oh, my goodness she’s so gorgeous,” and another guy go.

“Why do all the good-looking ones, have to pair up? Can’t they spread themselves out a bit.” This had made her laugh to herself quietly. But dispersed in between the comments calling her gorgeous and saying that she and Tom looked great together she heard a few snide things as well. She heard that one girl who had asked to get a date with Alex say,

“Of course, their going together, how very pureblood of them.” And her friend whispered back,

“That’s the only reason she got him, because their parents are making him go with her.”

Tom had heard these ones and leaned in,

“Ignore them.” He muttered.

“I am, they’re just jealous little third years anyway.” Said back, quite loudly so that they could hear her.

The room was starting to fill with students from all houses, Lana was able to spot Sam in a set of gorgeous blue dress robes, Lucy was stood next to her, in deep scarlet dress robes. She scanned the room and saw Mandy in a set of light pink dress robes. She couldn’t seem to find Diane or Ava in the crowd, nor did she get the time to, as at that moment McGonagall called out,

“Champions, over here please!”

Lana and Tom made their way through the crowd to where she was standing, once all the champions had assembled McGonagall began to explain that the champions had to wait at the door as everyone else went in. As she did Lana looked at the rest of the champions and their dates. Harry looked very smart; his date was a very pretty girl from his year who was in a set of very loud, pink dress robes. Fleur looked absolutely stunning in a set of silver dress robes, her date was Roger Davies, who looked like he could not believe his luck. Lana turned to Krum he looked very handsome in a set of red robes with a brown fur cape over his shoulder, his date was a pretty girl in a set of periwinkle dress robes, Lana looked at the girl for a minute and realised that it was Granger. She stood there stunned at how different she looked.

The champions all stationed themselves at the doors, Lana watched as Harry realised that Krum’s date was one of his best friends. The shock on his face was one of the best things he had seen all week, people began to enter through the doors. Lana smiled at all of her friends as each one past her, they all gave her look that clearly said.

Look at you.

Then the twins came. Fred walked past her, Angelina on his arm, he gave her a thumbs up and Angelina mouthed, “you look lovely,”. George and his date, the final chasers from the Gryffindor team walked past, the girl gave Lana a polite smile which Lana returned, but George looked like he was actively avoiding eye contact. More and more people past them, they all had something to whisper about. Once everyone else was settled in their seat, the champions made their way over to a table at the top of the room. They sat down, Lana took a minute to look around the room, it was covered in icicles and snowflakes, it had a blue ambience and strings of lights illuminated a dance floor in the centre of the room. She was broken out of her trance by Tom offering her a menu. She looked around the room again and couldn’t see any waiters, but just as her confusion was beginning to settle in Dumbledore looked won at his plate and said “Porkchops.” All of a sudden porkchops appeared. Everyone else followed suit, Lana ordered a turkey dinner and began to eat whilst having a conversation about the newest Spellbound song with Tom. She looked around to Hermione and placed a hand on hers to get her attention.

“You, look amazing!” she said excitedly, “I love your hair.”

“Thanks,” she looked almost honoured to get a compliment from Lana, she then went back into a deep conversation with Krum about how different Durmstrang was from Hogwarts, Fleur was insulting everything about Hogwarts and Roger Davies was mindlessly agreeing. She turned to back to Tom and began chatting about how she nearly went to Beauxbatons.

“Yeah, my mum was going to send me there, she didn’t like Hogwarts at first, got me fluent in French and everything, but my dad didn’t like the idea of me being so far away so I went to Hogwarts.”

“Wait you’re fluent in French?”

“Yep.”

Conversations continued and everyone ate some of the best food Hogwarts had ever produced. After a while the weird sisters came out on stage, Lana scanned the crown and found Fred giving Dot a triumphant look, he had won the bet. The champions were now being ushered down to the dance floor. Lana and Tom assumed the position that they had been taught about since the time they could stand. The music began and they waltzed, everyone looked at the champions as they waltzed, Potter looked incredibly uncomfortable, Lana didn’t like being stared at but continued on looking happy. More and more people were beginning to dance, Lana saw her friends heading onto the dance floor and directed Tom in their direction. Once there they all began chatting and dancing it was calm and happy and everything that had been weighing on Lana’s mind seemed to wash away. The music began to speed up and they all danced together as a collective group, laughing and chatting. Someone had spun her off onto the dance floor and she felt herself bump into a tall figure who grabbed her shoulders to stabilise her. She looked up to see George,

“Hello” he said clearly amused.

“Hi,” she said timidly, “sorry about that, I’ll just head out.” She didn’t want to stay long as she had not gotten the right vibe of him at all tonight.

“Nah, hang around, I mean if your group are cool with it?” Lana looked back at them they all seemed to be chatting and not desperately missing her so she decided to stay for a bit. They all danced around like lunatics. Eventually her lot came over and joined them, it was basically the sixth-year party and Tom, that joked had lasted about five minutes before Tom got sick of it. Lana was amazed by how well everyone was clashing, Angelina was chatting with Ava about the current song (Pucey had disappeared off to Malfoy and that lot), Fred and Tom were talking about how quidditch had been cancelled, how it would have been Tom’s last year, to play.

“Aw, that really sucks man.” At that Alexus scoffed.

“At least he got to play at all, I was never allowed.” She said as her date, a boy from Ravenclaw that Lana had not caught the name of, went to go get drinks.

“Well Snape’s been lining Alex up to be captain next year as he’s the second oldest after Pucey, and Pucey’s not the best leader, so he might let you on for the last year.” Lana called over.

“Really? That’s amazing.” Lex said looking very excited.

“What position do you play?” George asked

“Beater, so you better watch out for me Weasley.” She said coolly. Lana, and the girl George had come with turned back to the conversation they were having. Lana had learned that her name was Katie Bell and that she was a fifth year like Alex.

“So, as I was saying, we just both came as friends, knowing that we’d end up in a big group anyway.” She said they had been chatting about their dates.

“Yeah, my brother did that,” she said looking over to Alex who was dancing with a big group of boys from his year, “and Tom and I were forced to go together, so”

“Really? So like what going on with you guys?” she asked looking really interested

“We are very good friends that are currently stuck in an arranged marriage, that I didn’t really mind but would have preferred to, you know, actually marry someone I love, and he wants to cut all ties and become an Auror, so yeah,” she was still confused about what she was doing so she decided to change the subject.

“So how’s your night been?” she asked,

“Good, yeah,” she said but she didn’t sound to enthusiastic.

“There’s a but here, what is it?”

“I know that George and I came as friends, and I definitely don’t want anything different, but the fact that he has literally not stopped starting at you all night is a bit, y’know annoying.”

Lana was about to object to this statement, when a commotion started, she looked over to see Ron yelling at Hermione for something. She caught the words ‘enemy’ and ‘Vicky’ and realised that Ron was upset that Hermione had gone with Krum. She watched as Hermione walked off, clearly upset, and as Ron sat down on a chair, looking very proud of himself, as if making a close friend of yours was thing to be proud of. She watched Harry do nothing as all this happened. Then Viktor came over obviously looking for Hermione, Lana watched as Ron gave him no explanation as to where Hermione was and she knew she had to intervene.

She excused herself from the conversation and headed over to where they all were, she began speaking instantly.

“I think I saw her go this way Viktor, why don’t I show you?” she said placing a hand on his arm, as she turned him to the direction that Hermione had gone, she leaned into the boys,

“How dare you treat her like that, you should be ashamed of yourselves!” Potter looked like he was about to argue, but she turned and took Viktor to Hermione, honestly, ruining her special nigh just because they didn’t like who she had gone with, the nerve of them.

Once Viktor and Hermione had been reunited, and gone off dancing again, Lana made her way back to her group, in all the hassle she had totally forgotten about what Katie has said. She laughed and danced the night away; she and Mandy had belted out the last song that was played as it had been their ultimate favourite from the band. As they made their way back to their respective dormitories, Lana saw Potter and realised that he probably was struggling with egg as he had no idea that there were mermaids in the lake. She knew that she owed him one from the dragons tip. As he made his way up the stairs to the Gryffindor common room, she called him back. He didn’t look pleased to see her obviously still upset at her for the whole Hermione thing, but she continued nonetheless.

“Come here a sec.” He made his way down to her and looked at her as if he would rather be anywhere else. She looked around the room, people were bustling past them so she couldn’t be too obvious about what she was saying. She lowered her voice as she spoke.

“Open it underwater, password to the prefect bathroom is Pinefresh.” And she left without another word, making her way back to her common room.


	19. The Kitchens

The weeks dragged on, everyone was back in lessons and the pressure was really on now, the Christmas break seemed to be a be a hurdle for all the teachers and now they had overcome that hurdle they were in their final sprint. The mountains of homework they were giving were starting to weigh the students, quite literally, Lana’s bag had nearly split at one point.

Lana was in her last lesson for the week, she was waiting for it to just be over, so she could get all of her homework done in her free period so she wouldn’t have to do any over the weekend and she could enjoy Hogsmeade without it all waiting for her.

Moody seemed to be exceptionally slow in his talking today, they were going over non-verbal spells, so Lana was already very bored, having mastered those in her third year. She was sat thinking about the second task, she knew she would have to find a treasure, but that lake was so big and what if the treasure was really small? What if it was at the very bottom of the lake? It would make sense, the mermaids certainly lived that far down. She was pulled out of her trance by Lucy elbowing her in the stomach.

“Ow, what was that for?” she whispered, Lucy jerked her head over to where Moody was staring at her.

“Ah, now that I finally have your attention miss Rowle” he said in a very gruff tone, “tell me, what was more important than mastering the ability to cast spells without giving your enemy any idea of what you’re casting giving you an immediate advantage?” He said walking close to Lana’s desk.

“Nothing sir.” She said looking at his magical eye that was currently looking through the back of his head and at his desk.

“Well Rowle, considering you clearly deem yourself above an ability that no-one in this classroom can master, why don’t you show me what you’ve learnt being off in your own little fairy land huh?” he was shouting now, and walking back towards his desk. Once he reached his desk, he turned back round to her. “Oh, wait you can’t, because you’re too busy thinking about things that aren’t important, instead of actually bothering to learn important skills.” Lana was getting rather angry, how was he allowed to talk to students like that. He began to speak again. “Just because you’re a champion doesn’t mean I’m going to be lenient with you Rowle, I don’t-” he cut himself off, Lana was getting sick of him belittling her, and silently summoned a jar full of spiders off his desk, it flew past his head and directly to Lana, she caught it without a word. Lucy was staring at her as if she couldn’t believe what Lana had just done, she looked round the classroom and saw that the rest of the class had the same expressions. Moody began to stare her down, she stared back, jar of spiders still in hand.

“Impressive, but I’d be careful about who you act like that around, it can be seen as threatening, and trust me when I tell you that you do not want to threaten me, I was the one who brought your parents in remember?” Lana went pale, he may have brought them into the ministry so they could have a trial, but they were complicit and came without resistance. She bowed her head and placed the jar on the desk for him to collect.

“I want to see you at the end of the lesson.” He said, and the class continued, Lana stayed quiet and listened for the rest of the lesson, the bell went and Moody called out,

“Now in our next lesson, I am going to send a jelly legs hex towards you, and you will have to deflect it nonverbally, let’s hope you all buck up your idea’s, and build up your ability like Rowle here has.” The rest of the class left and Lana stayed stood at her desk waiting for Moody to speak.

“That was a nice bit of spell casting Rowle, when did you manage to get that down?” his tone was a lot calmer now, more reserved.

“Well,” she began timidly, “I first got the spells to work in my second year, but I didn’t fully master it until my third year sir,”

“Third year eh? Impressive.” Lana just stood there waiting for him to speak, he fiddled with the strap of her bag, as she waited.

“So Rowle, considering you have made it very clear that you want to be acknowledged as a champion more, how’s that egg going?” Lana was taken aback, that was not what she had expected from him, she had expected a lecture about her attitude.

“Very good sir, I’ve got it all figured it out.” She said, she was still apprehensive about Moody, she had not liked him since he got here, and he had now made a comment about her parents in the presence of all of her peers.

“Really, got it all figured out without any help?” He looked rather impressed at this feat.

“Yes sir, I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in the Slytherin common room, but you can sometimes see the mermaids in the windows, so that really helped.”

“I see, well I know that Potter helped you with the Dragons.” Lana’s eyes went wide.

“Don’t worry I’m not going to rat you guys out, cheating is a natural part of this competition, however I know what you Slytherins are like, you always to choose to save your own necks and let others deal with themselves, however-”

“I’m going to cut you off there professor, if you are leaning to me giving Potter a tip about the egg, I already have, we Slytherins may choose to save our own necks when the situation demands it, but we also know to remember those who helped us out.” And with that she made her way out of the classroom and towards the library.

Once she made it down there, she got to work, because Moody’s homework was a practical that she had already proven she could do, it meant that she only had one essay to complete. It was one from Sinistra about the different star positions on the day of your birth. She tied her hair up into a bun and began to write. After about an hour, when she was nearly done, she began to hear familiar voices having a conversation.

“C’mon mate there has to be a book about non-verbal spells” she heard Fred say.

“Do we really have to start practising now? We have all weekend.”

“Do you want to get jelly legs in front of the whole class? And might I add that Lana, Lana said it took her two years, imagine how long it could take us.” Fred said, Lana wanted to add in that it took her just under three years to master it but resisted.

“Yeah, but she was like eleven when she started, we’re sixteen.” George said, she heard one of them reach to the shelf and pick up a book.

“But, she’s crazy smart, did you see her today? It was awesome.” Fred said, his tone changed as he said the word ‘awesome’ and Lana could tell that he was reliving the moment.

“I’m not denying that’s she’s super smart and badass, and could probably hex us into oblivion without even opening her mouth, but you don’t need to be so worked up about this, if we get jelly legs, we get jelly legs. We won’t be the only ones, and it wears off.” George said, Lana could feel her heart swell, but she kept quiet she reckoned the twins would be a bit put out if they found out that she had heard all this.

“Yeah, I guess I’m just scared about embarrassing myself in front of Moody, what he said to Lana was horrible.” Fred said.

“Yeah, what do you think he wanted to talk to her about? You don’t think he chewed her out, more do you?”

“I dunno man, probably.”

Lana decided now was the time to interject.

“Actually, he wanted to know how I was doing with my egg.” She said casually, still writing her essay.

“Wait, what? Where’d that come from?”

“I dunno.”

Lana picked up her book, held it to her chest and poked her head around the shelf.

“Hi”

“Merlin Rowle, you can’t sneak up on us like that.” George breathed.

“How can I sneak up on you if I’ve been here for an hour?” she said coming round the bookshelf completely.

“I don’t know, but apparently you can.” Said Fred as he put a put a book back up on a shelf.

“So, I couldn’t help but overhearing that you guys are struggling with non-verbal spells, need any help?” Lana watched as their faces lit up.

“Yes please.” They said in unison, and Lana began to explain the important little details that you need to think about when attempting nonverbal spells, she then had them try to silently levitate books. They were so close, a couple of times the books had actually wobbled or lifted for a second. Lana was starting to get very tired, she had been working non-stop all week and it was really starting to settle in.

“You alright there Lana?” Fred asked as she let out a massive yawn.

“Yeah, just very tired, I wanted a quiet weekend, this weekend, so I’ve had a very loud week.” She stifled another yawn.

“Well, I’m all done for the evening, I think I’m going to get some dinner, you coming?” Fred turned to George, who was holding onto Lana’s books for some reason.

“I think I’m fine, I’m going to start that potions essay so I don’t put it off this weekend.” George said as he made way round to the desks Lana had been working on.

“Alright dude, see you in a bit.” Fred said, heading out and giving Lana a wink as he left. She smiled at him and headed back to her astronomy essay. She and George sat in silence as he worked on potions and she finished up her astronomy.

Lana finished her essay around ten minutes later, she stretched herself out as her back was starting hurt from bending over her essay for ten minutes straight. She looked over to George as saw that he was struggling on his third paragraph.

“You need to talk about what you do to prepare the next set of ingredients, as you wait for the first to set.” She said leaning over and pointing to the section of the book that told you what to do.

“Oh, right, thanks,” Lana went to pack up her stuff and leave when he spoke again, “would you mind staying? So, you can help.” He asked looking down at the essay.

“Yeah sure, but be warned I might fall asleep on you.” She joked as she put her stuff in her bag so it was out of her way. She began to watch what he was writing and added in little comments when necessary but after about twenty minutes she was really struggling to stay awake, she was so tired she wasn’t really aware of what she was doing. So, she didn’t even notice what she was resting her head on when she began to fall asleep.

When Lana woke up, she kept her eyes closed for a minute, her head was resting on something soft and warm, it was really warm, nothing in the library should be this warm. She opened her eyes and saw that her head was on George’s shoulder. She sat up instantly, mortified.

“Welcome back, you weren’t kidding when you said you might fall asleep on me.” He laughed.

“I am so sorry, how long was I out?” Lana said sitting up very straight, she had only been joking, she could not believe that she had actually fallen asleep on him.

“Don’t worry about it, it was honestly sort of cute, and about half an hour.” He said going back to his essay.

“You let me sleep on you for that long, what about your essay?”

“It was fine, you fell asleep on my left shoulder.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot that I’m the weird one.” Lana had totally forgotten that most people wrote with their right hands.

“Are you left-handed?” he asked conversationally.

“Yeah,” she said whilst stretching, “So’s my dad and brother.”

“Never knew that about you, guess I’m not that observant.” He said has dotted his last ‘I’ and rolled up the parchment. Lana was starting to realise how hungry she was, her stomach was screaming at her to get some food.

“I think I’m going to get something to eat.” She said getting up, and grabbing bag.

“You’re a bit late, dinner ended ten minutes ago.” Lana looked at her watch, he was right.

“Shit, I’m so hungry.” She moaned knowing she wouldn’t be able to eat until breakfast now.

“Don’t worry, I have a plan.” He said as he got up, to Lana ‘s surprise he grabbed her hand and lead her out of the library.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he dragged her along corridor after corridor.

“You’ll see.” 

They had reached a rather odd painting of a fruit bowl. George lifter his hand and used his index finger to tickle a pear in the centre of the picture. Lana watched as the pear laughed, squirmed and turned into a doorknob. George turned the nob opened the door and lead Lana inside. She was met with a room that was as big as the great hall, it had a tall celling that had pots and pans hanging from it. Lana looked down and saw a swarm of house elves. She was taking in all the different sights and smells of the room when she heard her name being called.

“Mistress Alana, how nice to see you.” She looked down and saw the Malfoy’s old house elf, Dobby.

“Hi Dobby, and its just Lana.” She said waving at him. Another house elf that Lana didn’t know made their way up to them.

“Good evening master Weasley, what can we help you with?” they said looking at the two of them.

“Well, you see, my friend and I were busy working and missed dinner, but we are both really hungry and was wondering if you could make something up for us?” George said, he seemed very natural with all the house elves, Lana could tell that he had been down here a lot.

“Of course, sir, I’m guessing you would like what you would normally have?” said the elf, it then looked to Lana.

“And you miss?” Lana thought for a moment she didn’t want to be too much of a bother, so she decided to go with something simple.

“Could I have some leek and potato soup please? It’s my favourite”

“Would you like bread with that?” the elf asked.

“Yes please.” She said looking at George as he made his way down to a fireplace at the end of the room, she followed him, they sat down at the end of one of the four tables that were clearly counterparts for the ones in the great hall. Once they were settled down George began to speak.

“Leek and potato soup? I would have expected someone from your family to have some weird dish like roasted peacock as your favourite meal.” He joked.

“Yeah well, I don’t like any of that sort of food, or the social events that come with it, if I’m being honest my favourite thing my family does, is when we all curl up around the fireplace in our living room, eating food that we made ourselves, reading the same book.”

“You guys do that? it sounds a bit boring.”

“It’s really not, my dad and I are a lot quicker than my mum and brother, so we’ll read a section that’s like really dramatic and then wait for the others to catch up and watch their faces as they read the dramatic bit and its honestly the funniest thing.” She laughed to herself thinking back to when the main character of the book they were reading over the summer had died and Alex had started crying whilst reading it.

“But like reading, when you don’t have to do it for school work?” he said looking disgusted.

“Hey we all have our different ways of keeping ourselves entertained, I read fantasy books full of adventure and love and you turn people into canaries.” She joked looking him in the eyes as she said the last bit. He leaned in to her to the point that their noses where nearly touching.

“Well at least my thing makes money.” Lana was looking into his deep brown eyes, they had a fun twinkle that never really seemed to leave, they also had hints of his smile, the smile that literally lit up any room…

Shit.

This is not good. She had convinced herself that she had never really like him, yet here she was staring into his eyes. They were interrupted by and elf bringing over their food. Lana’s soup was delicious these guys really knew what they were doing. She and George were chatting about his and Fred’s newest ideas for their joke shop, the atmosphere of the room meant that Lana was very comfortable, she listened to all of the different ideas and could not stop laughing at some of them. After she had finished her food, she turned ask a house elf where she should put her plate. It took the plate from her and placed it on a massive pile of crockery to be cleaned. She looked at the time on her watch she saw that it was nearly nine, curfew started in five minutes.

“We, better be off, curfew starts soon.”

“We’ll be fine.” He said waving his had dismissively, but getting up from his seat.

“I’m still gonna go, Alex is probably waiting for me, we haven’t had a catch up in a while.” She waved him goodbye and made her way back to the common room. All she could do was think about what the fuck her emotions thought they were playing at. Letting her fall in love with a Weasley, whilst also making her question her loyalty to her parents, all this whilst she was having to battle dragons and mermaids. Did they not know about her inability to processes two different feeling at once? Once she had reached the portrait hole she went into the common room and scanned for Alex, she found him sat in one of the armchairs by the fire. She went up to him and sat in front of his legs, she reached up for a pillow and just groaned into it.

“You alright there?” he asked playing with her hair absentmindedly.

“No, I’m in love, and I don’t want to be.” She said, her voice muffled by the pillow.

“Ah, she admits it.”

“Shut up.” She said turning around to face him, “this is serious, it was just little bubble last time but this is a waterfall, I can’t stop it.”

“Why would you want to stop it? He clearly reciprocates those feelings.”

“Because, I still don’t know about what I’m doing with mum and dad.” She wasn’t, and this certainly wasn’t helping.

“Who says this makes your decision? You can still date him and then go off into and arranged marriage, if anything now would be a good time to date him, live your life now, you know?” Alex said taking her hair out its bun and beginning to plait is messily.

“Yeah, but what if I get super attached to him?” Lana asked.

“Well then you can go ‘sod off mum and dad, I love this guy’ and go live with the Weasleys.” He retorted.

“I guess,”

“I’m not saying you have to; I’m just saying it would be a shame if you ignored all these feeling and then live to regret it five years down the line.” He said letting her hair fall out of the loose plait he had put it in.

“Okay, yeah thanks.” She got up and made her way to her dorms when Alex called out.

“Why do we only ever discuss your life problems?” Lana turned back around.

“Right sorry, what going on with you?”

“Nothing, my life’s going great.”

“Little shit.” She muttered as she went up to her dorms to shower and go to bed.


	20. The second task

It was nine o’clock on the morning of February the twenty-fourth, and Lana was sat at the Slytherin table with her friends, to say that she was incredibly nervous was an understatement. She was staring at her food like it was taunting her, unable to eat it. She looked down the table and once again saw a sea of green, green clothes, green face paint and in some extreme cases green hair.

“C’mon Lana you have to eat something.”

“Has anyone seen Alex?” She asked, not listening, still scanning the great hall, she couldn’t find him all evening and he was still missing now.

“No, eat something.”

Lana, desperate to talk to Alex before the task, continued to scan the room, she turned back round to her friends, only to receive a piece of buttered toast directly into her mouth.

“Eat it.”

“George!”

“What? You know she wasn’t going to eat any other way.”

Lana chewed the toast and felt her whole body thank her. Once she had fully eaten the toast, she began to search for Alex again. She needed him to give her a pep-talk before the task he was one of the few people who would be able to pull her back to earth.

“Lana, calm down you’ll be fine, merlin knows you’ve known what you were up against for weeks, and knowing you, you have a plan, a back up plan, and two extra just in case. You’ll be great” George said buttering another bit of toast for her. “Jam?” Lana felt herself calm down a bit, she took a deep breath and began to fiddle with the sleeves of the jumper that she was wearing over her swimming costume. “Yes please.”

“George is right you’ll be great.” Diane said placing a hand on Lana’s. Lana felt another hand being placed on her shoulder she turned around to see professor McGonagall.

“Miss Rowle, please come with me.” She said and she began to walk off, Lana got up to follow her, she turned to wave goodbye to everyone. George held up the piece of toast, she leaned in and grabbed it with her mouth and made her way down to McGonagall. She had been a lot more comfortable with George nowadays it had been several weeks since their escapade to the kitchens and her feelings had only grown. She had kept them very quiet, of course. She still wasn’t sure what to do with her parents, Alex had made everything seem rational but whenever she had thought about it, it sounded stupid.

“So, Alana, how are you feeling this morning?” Lana was thrown off; she was not expecting that from McGonagall.

“Pardon, professor?”

“How are you this morning? Well prepared?” she looked at her worriedly

“Yes, thank you, I’ve got a plan.” She said, it was a nice feeling, being acknowledged.

“Good, just remember to keep your head down there and you’ll be fine.” McGonagall placed her hand on Lana’s shoulder again, although she obviously did not want to bring up Lana’s rant, it clear that she had taken it to heart. Once they had reached the lake, McGonagall gave Maxime and Karkaroff a scathing look and turned to Lana both hands now firmly planted on her shoulders,

“Now you go out there and you show that lot what Hogwarts is made of, this is your challenge to win, you know that lake and what lives in it better than any of the others.”

“Thank you, professor.” Lana said, she felt a warmth spread in her chest, is this what Potter felt like all the time? Speaking of Potter, she couldn’t see him anywhere, Fleur and Krum were both here so, where was he? She looked to the other two and say that they were already in their swimwear, she lifted her Weasley jumper (as she had heard them being called) over her head, and then took off her joggers. With a couple of hair ties, and a few pins Lana pulled her hair back into a tight bun that sat at her neck. She was beginning to get cold already, so she silently put the thermal spell on herself and felt a warmth wash over her. She looked to the crowd and saw her friends making their way down to the stands. They were making their way in her direction, clearly wanting to give some last ‘good luck’s. Lucy called out,

“We tried to find Alex, but he’s disapeard.” Lana had a sudden and horrible thought, what if she couldn’t find him now because she was supposed to find him in the lake? She went pale, the others had clearly noticed as Fred called out.

“What’s up?”

“I think I’ve figured out where Alex is.” She called back.

“Where?” Quite a few people had called that one at once. Lana didn’t say a word but just slowly pointed to the lake. She watched as all of their faces changed to looks of shock as they realised what she meant. She began to pace along the banks of the lake.

“Lana you can’t be serious.” Ava said as the group reached her.

“It makes sense,” she said still pacing, “the song said, something I will sorely miss, I’ll definitely miss my brother,” back and forth, back and forth, she kept pacing, her pace getting quicker and the distance she was walking getting smaller. “I haven’t seen Granger or your brother,” she gestured in the vague direction Fred and George, “all morning, and Fleur’s sister, the one who always follows her around, nowhere to be seen. Clearly Ron is Harry’s treasure, Hermione is Krum’s, the girl is Fleur’s,” she choked on her own words panic rising in her stomach, “and Alex is mine.”

She continued to pace; the panic had reached her head. It was swirling around, she felt flustered and like there was a five-pound weight resting on her brain. She felt like she was going to be sick and pass out. No noise seemed to be making it into her ears so she didn’t hear Mandy calling her name, it took her placing her hand on Lana’s shoulder for Lana to be dragged back into reality. 

“Lana this is a good thing.” She said.

“How Mand? How is this a good thing?”

“Well you were really freaked out about that last line, you know, the one that said the treasure won’t come back?” Lana nodded quickly “Well, you were worried that it was going to be a bit of jewellery that you loved or something small, that you would actually never get back, but if it’s Alex not only will he be a right sight easier to spot, they also can’t keep him down there, can they? So, you’ll definitely get him back.”

Lana processed that for a minute, Mandy was right, she felt the panic wash off her, her lungs took in a large sum of air for the first time in a good few minutes and the weight had been lifted from her head.

“That’s a very good point,” she said pointing to Mandy. She was about to say something else but she cut herself off, Fleur was talking to Maxime in rapid French, she clearly thought that no one around her would be able to understand what she was saying. Everyone was still chatting and Lana shushed them so she could hear Fleur better. She was violently insulting her and her friends, she heard herself being called too hot headed, Fred and George lanky idiots and Diane stuck up. She knew she had to something, she turned to face her and said in a very loud voice.

“Surveille ton langage.” She watched as Fleur’s normally gorgeous face formed an expression of horror. She turned back to her friends.

“What did you say to her?” Lucy asked looking intrigued, all of her group knew that Lana was fluent in French so it was natural that only Fred and George looked shocked.

“I told her to watch her mouth.” Everyone began to laugh. Then Dumbledore came over to the group.

“We are about to start, so if you all wouldn’t mind heading up to the stands.” The group began to move away wishing her good luck as they left, Lana realised the twins were probably still really confused by her ability to speak French, but knew one of the girls would fill them in. Dumbledore turned to her.

“Good luck down there Lana, I’m sure that you will do us all proud.” And with that he made his way over to the judging seats. Lana moved her head from side to side letting all the tension in her neck out with a satisfying crunch. Potter was still nowhere to be seen; she was just starting to get the feeling that he wasn’t coming when she saw him sprinting down the grounds. He got to the banks and bent over holding his hand to what Lana assumed to be a stitch. She was still thinking about her strategy to find Alex when Bagman’s voice boomed through the grounds.

“Well, all our champions are ready for the second task, which will start on my whistle. They have precisely an hour to recover what has bee taken from them. On the count of three, then. One … two … three!”

The whistle echoed through the grounds and Lana began to run into the water. It must have been freezing but the spell meant Lana couldn’t tell. She ran until the water was about waist hight and then performed the bubble head charm. A large bubble formed around her mouth and nose she took a breath in and once she was sure that she could still breathe and that the spell had worked she dived into the water.

It was called the black lake for a reason, Lana couldn’t see anything, she considered using her wand to help her look around but that would just reveal her position to all of the creatures that lived down there. Her eyes began to adjust after about five minutes. She began to swim and search. Lana was a very strong swimmer, her family’s manor house had a lake, that was a lot smaller than this one, but she still spent most of her summers in it. She swam through the deep depths of the lake; it had been ages and she was starting to worry about the time limit. She began to swim down towards the bottom of the water, if she wasn’t desperately looking for her brother she would be taking in the beauty of the ecosystems under the water, beautiful plants and harmless creatures passed her every minute. It must have been at least half an hour now. She began to hear voices singing.

‘An hour long you’ll have to look

And recover what we took…’

Lana swam towards where the sound was coming from. It was getting closer and closer, and then Lana felt something grab her leg. She looked down and saw a swarm of Grindylows beneath her. About seven of them had now seized her legs. She writhed around trying to get herself free but it was no sue the more she struggled the stronger they gripped. She got out her wand and started to blast them away, it worked for a bit but as the ones she had already dealt with sank lower into the lake, more came. She was starting to get overwhelmed they were pulling her down she was scared of drowning at this point, that panic feeling was building up again. She thought back to the lesson professor Lupin had taught on Grindylows, she remembered how you needed bright light to keep them at bay. She began to shoot streams of light from her wand, it worked most of them fell back blinded and weak, other that had not yet been hit let go of her and retreated back down to the sandy bottom of the lake. Once they were all gone, she made her way deeper into the lake. The voices had stopped but she could vaguely remember where they were coming from, she swam in that direction searching. As she went deeper into the lake, she began to see the same dark figures that she often saw in the common room in person, she must be close. She followed the figures to wherever they were heading, they must’ve been trying to lose her as she found herself making lots of different turns and getting lost in large sections of seaweed. She persisted nonetheless twisting and turning, just keeping the tails of the mermaids in sight.

They reached a clearing in the water, she looked down and saw four people chained up surrounded by merpeople, she scanned ad saw that she was spot on, Fleurs little sister, Ron and Hermione where all there. Alex was at the end, he looked pale in the waters lighting, his hair was floating in the water. She swam over to him; she placed her hands over his cheeks, he was freezing. She saw Potter in the corner of her eye, he had clearly gotten here before her but was dawdling for some reason. She moved away from Alex for only a second to gesture to her wrist like there was a watch there, indicating to him that they were running out of time. She moved back to Alex instantly, directing her wand to the chain that was holding him to the bottom of the lake, she let out a blasting charm and pulled Alex’s stiff body towards her and made her way back to the surface. As she swam holding tightly onto Alex, she began to feel the thermal charm wear off, the coldness of the water was starting to seep into her skin. She didn’t meet any interferences on her way back to the surface of the water. As light began to make it to her eyes, she heard the cheers of the crowd as they started to flood her ears. She was nearly at a point where she would be able to lift her and Alex’s above the water, she began to swim as fast as she possible could, just a few more seconds.

The screams of the crowd as she emerged from the water were deafening, but she was too focused on Alex to hear them. He had returned to consciousness and was now coughing and shivering, Lana pulled him into a tight hug as they tread water.

“Are you alright?”

“I will be once we get to the surface and I get a blanket over me.”

The two began to swim towards the banks, as they made to a point where they could stand, they began to walk their way up to where Dumbledore was waiting for them. Lana held onto Alex’s hand tightly mainly to confirm to herself that he was there. Just before they reached dry land Alex stopped and held Lana’s arm in the air for the whole crowd to see, the cheers from Hogwarts students echoed round the area. She laughed as Alex shook her arm and then looked to see her friends sprinting towards her, she ran forwards and met them halfway. She collided with Mandy who pulled her into a very tight hug. Lana began to shiver, the thermal spell had fully worn off and she was become very aware that she was soaked to the skin in freezing water and only had a swimming costume on. She looked round and saw Ava fussing over Alex, giving him a blanket as Fred ruffled his hair.

“Lana you’ve won!” Sam called, throwing a blanket over her head. Lana was thrown into darkness again but at least this time it was warm. She moved the blanket so it was wrapped around her and looked round the group.

“Am I the first one back?”

“You’re the first one back with your hostage Fleur had surrender.” George said over everyone’s heads. At that moment madame Pomfrey came over and started to fuss over Alex and Lana.

“Should’ve come straight to me, honestly standing out in the open like that, oh and dear you’ve got a couple of cuts, Grindylows I suppose?”

“Yes.” Lana said as Pomfrey ushered her to sit down on a bench by the lakeside. Pomfrey got to work healing up Lana’s cuts, she looked and saw Fleur freaking calling her sisters name. she let out a yawn, she could already feel the exhaustion and stiffness of her overworked muscles settling in. She had to say focused Krum and Potter were still down there. As she was sitting blanket wrapped around her, she felt someone sit down next to her, she looked over and saw George holding two cups in his hands, her offered one to her and she drunk it, it was steaming hot tea. She felt as the liquid passed through her body warming her instantly. She leaned onto him and he put an arm over her to keep her warm, they both seemed to understand each other’s feelings but knew that now was not the best time to talk about it. They sat in silent understanding as Lana let her eyes close for a bit. She didn’t get much peace as after about five minutes she heard the crowd roar again.

“Who’s back?” She asked, too tired to open her eyes.

“Krum and Hermione.” Lana sat up a bit, she looked at him, he seemed very calm, she took a sip of her still very hot tea and spoke.

“How are you so calm?” Your brother is still down there.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got plenty of those and besides Harry’s got it under control.”

“I dunno man, he was with the hostages before me or Krum and he’s still not back.”

“Well now you’re making me nervous.” He said fiddling with one of the corners of Lana’s blanket.

“Sorry. I’m sure he’ll be fine.” She relaxed back onto him

They sat for felt like it could have been hours, but Lana knew it could have only been about twenty minutes. Neither of them said anything, Lana was too tired and George was too nervous. When they started to hear yells, George sat up for his relaxed position and Lana toppled slightly, she regained her balance and looked up to see Harry emerging from the water with Ron and Fleurs sister. She felt George take a deep breath next her.

“You can go and see him if you want, I’m fine here.” She said croakily.

“Nah it’s alright, Percy’s got him.”

Lana’s friends came back over to her, she wasn’t really sure where or why they had gone, but she had a hunch that they wanted to leave her and George alone to see what would happened.

“Lana they’re doing scores, you need to come and listen.” She heard someone say.

“I’m coming.” She yawned. George got up first and offered her a hand which she took. They made their way over to where the judges where. 

Bagman began to speak in his magically magnified voice. He explained that the judges had come to a decision about the scores. Fleur was scored first as she was the first to come back, she got twenty-five points. Next it was Lana, everyone around her leaned in.

“Miss Rowle showed excellent use of the bubble head charm, and was the first to return with her hostage and although she was one minute out of the time limit, we have decided to award her forty-seven points.” Lana could have jumped back into the lake and done another victory lap. She looked around and saw all of her friends celebrating she relaxed completely, that had to be the highest score, she had won. Krum had gotten a reasonable forty points and Potter due to his ‘moral fibre’ had gotten forty-five points. Lana thought he had been judged too softly but, in the moment, she didn’t care, she was wining.

“The third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June, the champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month before hand, thank you all for your support of the champions.”

Lana was starting to get the endorphin highs of the task being over as she and everyone else that had been under water were rushed back up to the school by madame Pomfrey. Lana had been presented with her clothes from the morning and had been told to change behind a screen int the hospital wing, so that Pomfrey could then give her the final all clear to let her leave.

Once she was dressed and she had been allowed to leave, she made her way back to the Slytherin common room. She didn’t make it back as she was once again met by George Weasley

“All warmed up I see.”

“Yeah, now I’m just really tired, at least I’ve got a long break now.” She said folding her arms over chest.

“Yeah, you were great out there, I mean we couldn’t see much, but at one point we just saw light shooting from different directions under the water it was honestly quite beautiful.”

“Yeah, that was me, I was dealing with some Grindylows.” She said.

“It was awesome.” Lana smiled at him.

They stood in the abandoned corridor, both of them closer to each other than the average person would stand to someone they considered a ‘friend’. She looked into his eyes and he looked back, he was practically leaning over her now, the tips of their noses were brushing against each other and then it happened he leaned in closer and their lips were touching. The first thing Lana thought was how tall he was he was leaning down and she still had to go on her tiptoes to make the kiss comfortable. It was amazing, she let her mid go free as they were just there in the moment, and Lana suddenly realised what she was doing and pulled away quickly.

“I can’t do this.” She whispered.

“Really? Because it seemed like you were.” He joked.

“No, you just don’t get it, you can bring home whoever you want, but if brought you home they’d probably kill me and you.” She said leaning against the wall.

“Who said anything about bringing me home? I mean we just kissed; I swear meeting the parents comes a lot later than that.” He said putting a hand on the wall, over her head and leaning in. “I like you Rowle, and you like me. What’s the harm in messing around for a bit, like I know your parents have other plans and all-”

“Yeah, well those aren’t happening.”

“What?”

“Tom’s pulling out, we aren’t getting married.”

“See, even more of a reason to let this happen, I mean everyone wants it to, Lucy and Fred have a bet on, I heard them talking about it in the common room.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to be set up with someone again, that’s the thing with my parents, they are very persistent. And I don’t know what I’m doing yet, if I’m staying or if I’m going, they may make a lot of big decisions for me but their still my family.” She said, she looked up at him, he still had that glint in his eyes.

“I get that, but let’s just have fun and think about the long run later.” He said and they kissed again.

“Lana, you are literally the most amazing person I have ever met, and I want to do this.”

Lana thought over what Alex had said, and maybe it was because of everything that had happened over the last hour or two but it finally seemed reasonable in her mind. She was ready for this, and knew that if things between the two of them escalated and all ties were cut with her parents she would be accepted into the Weasley family with open arms.

“I do too, but if we do it will have to be really subtle or my parents will hear about it and end it and then you.” She said, grabbing his hand.

“Fine, whatever I have to do to make this last.” They leaned in for a final kiss before heading to the great hall hand in hand, she leaned her head on his arm and he looked down at her and just smiled she smiled back. They were in a peaceful bliss that Lana hoped would never end. She had never felt more happy, the fear and uncertainty that she held about her parents could wait, she was living in the moment and that’s all that counted.


	21. Hogsmeade

The group was all sat in the armchair section of the library, it was hard for them to find comfy spots to hang out, when they were all from different houses. Lana was curled up in one of the chairs reading, when the twins came into the library.

“Hello everyone.” Fred said as George passed him and bent over Lana, she lifted her head and kissed him.

“Hi” Diane said highlighting a section of her book for later.

“So, what are everyone’s plans for Hogsmeade this weekend?” Lucy asked.

“Well, I need to find a present for Alex’s birthday but other than that I have no immediate plans.” Lana said sitting up.

“Oh, Alex’s birthday’s coming up? When?” George asked.

“Monday” Lana said still reading her book. She looked up to him to see that he was still slightly confused.

“The twenty-sixth.” She explained.

“Awesome, that means we can have our one month in Hogsmeade.” He said fiddling with her hair. Lucy sighed,

“And to think that if you guys and just waited two more weeks, I would be twenty galleons richer.”

“You guys bet twenty galleons on those two?” Mandy asked looking horrified.

“No, Mand we bet ten galleons, but Lucy had to give me ten, making her ten galleons poorer. So, if she had won, she would have been able to keep her galleons and get mine making her twenty galleons richer.” Said Fred as he sat on one of the desks.

Lana let out a small laugh. Apart from Lucy being upset that she had lost the bet everyone’s reaction to the news that she and George were dating had been very good, they had all seemed incredibly happy for them. Alex was over the moon. He had not stopped going on about how good this was going to be for her. Lex had given her a look that clearly said, you expect me to be surprised. And no one else really knew. They were keeping it lowkey for the time being to make sure they didn’t get ratted out.

Lana moved up a bit and George slipped in next to her, he put an arm around her and they just relaxed. Lana had come to the realisation that she had waited far too long to fall in love, with anyone. When you had that sort of person in your life, everything seemed easier, life seemed fuller and everything seemed possible. It had only been a month and Lana had already felt her spirits rise. She was excelling in all of her lessons, the third task was too far way to stress her out and the exams that were already starting to loom over everyone else did not concern her.

The group stayed chatting for a while, about anything anyone brought up. They stayed in their very relaxed positions until Madame Pince practically booted them out of the doors. They said their goodbyes and all made their way to their respective common rooms. Lana and Ava didn’t talk much on their way back to the common room, they just enjoyed each other’s presence. Lana and Ava had been friends since the first train ride and over their time together had come to understanding that they didn’t need to talk to each other every time they interacted. Lana had always felt closest with Ava, she loved all of her friends more than she could say but, she and Ava understood each other the most. Coming from very similar backgrounds, and having very similar experiences with family meant that the two gravitated to each other a lot, especially now considering they were both beginning to get pushed into arranged marriages and starting to have their lives planned out for them, Ava a fair bit more than Lana. They made it back to the common room, Ava went over to chat with Tom, and Lana just went up to bed.

The next morning Lana woke up to Nova’s nose inches from hers,

“Morning,” she whispered as she pulled him next to her and began to stroke him quietly thinking about what she was going to do once she and George were in Hogsmeade. It was quiet in the dorm, the only sound being Nova’s purring, Lana was very close to dozing off again so she decided to get up and take a shower.

Whilst she was getting changed in the bathroom, she began to hear voices from her dorm, the others were starting to get up. She made her way out of the steamy room and back to her bed.

“Morning.” She said, sitting down and once again placing Nova on her lap,

“Morning Lan.” Everyone else was still drowsy, their hair was messy and they all still had their pyjamas on.

“How are already dressed and wide awake?” Alexus passed her to go in the bathroom, scratching Nova’s head as she went.

“Good sleep schedule I guess.” Lana called as Alexus closed the door. “What’s the time?”

“Just coming up to eight,” Said Kathrine checking the clock on her bedside table.

“Cool, so if I leave now, I’ll get there just as breakfast starts, I’ll see you guys around. Lana made her way out of the dorm through the common room and out of the portrait hole. She had a peaceful walk to the hall but once she got there she was met with trouble. Pansy Parkinson to be exact.

“So, Rowle, how are you doing?”

“What do you want Parkinson?” Lana did not have the time to deal with whatever the glorified pug wanted.

“Just to see how you were doing, how your life’s going.” Lana examined her, she couldn’t see anything suspicious but she did see that,

“There’s a bug on your shoulder.” She said pointing to were a small green beetle was resting on Pansy’s left shoulder.

“Oh, yeah,” she said looking at her shoulder too, “well, it’s not hurting me,” that was really weird, Pansy was normally the first person to scream at small insects and kill them, “so, anyway how are you doing considering the fact that Potter is getting unfair treatment in this competition?”

“What?” Lana didn’t like this, it felt like a trap, Parkinson had never liked Lana and the feeling was mutual. When Lana’s name was picked Parkinson had started being fake nice in the hopes of getting in Lana’s good books, but Lana saw right through it, she didn’t like fakes, if you’ve got something to say be direct. So that had naturally made Parkinson hate Lana more.

“You heard me, Potter is getting far too much special treatment in this competition and that’s not fair on you or the other contestants, that must make you very angry, doesn’t it?” she said in that tone of fake sweetness.

“I haven’t got time for this.” And Lana pushed past her and made her way down to the Gryffindor table where she saw the Fred and Lucy in a heated argument.

“NO, they aren’t out of the running, if the cannons flatten the wasps then they still have a shot.” She said rising out of her seat slightly 

“Yeah but what are the chances of that happening?”

“Very high,”

Lana dropped into a seat next to George and slipped her hand into his, “What are they going on about?”

“Quidditch.”

“Ah, should’ve known.” They sat quietly having their breakfast more and more people joining them. Once everyone was full and ready to go, they made their way down to Hogsmeade as a group but split off when they reached the main street. The majority of them just went for a drink in the Three Broomsticks, but Fred and Diane both needed some new potions ingredients and George and Lana wanted to go for a walk up to the Shrieking Shack.

They didn’t talk much on the way up just enjoyed each other’s company, hand in hand they made their way up to the Shrieking Shack. The weather had actually started to pick up a bit so they weren’t as wrapped up as normal and their cheeks and fingers weren’t turning red in the air. When they got to the shack it was deserted meaning they had the whole area to themselves. George took the backpack he had been wearing and began to pull out a tartan picnic blanket and some snacks that seemed to be all of Lana’s favourites. She could see strawberries, bars of white chocolate and flasks of pumpkin juice.

“M’lady.” Lana couldn’t help but let out a snort, she had been called that at big events that her parents held by old men who were friends of her grandfather, so hearing it from her boyfriend was definitely weird.

“No?” he asked holding out a hand.

“No,” she laughed taking it and sitting down with him.

They sat chatting about the shack and eating more chocolate than they’d like to admit. When the topic changed to teachers and eventually to Lupin.

“I don’t think we had Lupin together did we?” George asked.

“No, I had him with the Hufflepuffs.” She said chucking a small strawberry in the air and catching it in her mouth.

“What did you think of him?”

“I really liked him, he offered me a cup of tea during the breaktime after my boggart and talked to be about my future as a healer, and how I seemed like the type that would help people no matter what,” she fiddled with one of the chocolate wrappers, “he may have been labouring the point a bit but I appreciated it nonetheless.”

“Wait, what was your boggart?” he asked attempting to catch a strawberry in his mouth and failing miserably. Lana began to laugh, he took a minute silently laughing at himself, and began to point at her,

“There is a reason that I’m a beater and not a chaser.”

“That’s becoming more evident every day.” She giggled.

“So, what is your boggart?” he persisted.

“Well, it’s me… oh god not like that let me finish,” she hastened as he gave a look of pure shock, “it’s me but as I walk towards myself, I point a wand at me and if you look on my left forearm you can see a fully visible dark mark, hence why Lupin was determined to prove to me that I am not that kind of person.” She finished, taking the last bit of white chocolate.

“Ah, I see,” he said looking sort of awkward, but that passed very quickly, “well I agree with him, you are definitely not that sort.”

“Thank you, so what’s yours?”

“Oh, just the basic, Fred’s dead body, you know.” He said completely unfazed by that statement. “And Fred’s the same just the other way round.”

“Makes sense.” He shuffled in his seat and reached for the backpack again.

“Right, let’s get off that topic,” he said rummaging around in the bag, “I have a surprise for you.” He found what he was looking for and chucked at Lana who caught it. she looked at it and saw that it was her copy of her favourite book. She could tell it was hers, as its pages were tatty and there was a tea stain on the inside cover. She flipped through the pages and saw all of her little handwritten notes in the margins and around the chapter titles.

“Okay first off, how did you get this? Last I checked it was in the top draw of my bedside table, and second off, what do you want me to do with it?” She said in a confused but light tone.

“I got Ava to steel it for me, and I want you to read it to me.” He said cutely. Lana let out a laugh.

“Can’t read it yourself huh?” she joked.

“I could, it’s just I don’t have the passion for this sort of stuff like you do, but at the same time if this is the stuff that you’re really into I want to have that with you, so I thought the best way to keep me interested in it was if you read it to me.” He looked nervous, like she was going to say no.

“That’s an excellent idea.” She said in a very fond tone, no one had ever done this sort of thing for her before. “Shall we start now?” she asked opening the book.

“I don’t see why not.” They shifted themselves around so that George was sat up with his legs out and Lana was laid out on the blanket, her head resting in his lap. She began to read to him as he played with her hair. Lana had never really read the book aloud before she took great pleasure in pausing for dramatic effect and doing silly voices for all the different characters. They stayed there in blissful harmony for chapters when Lana came to a sudden realisation.

“Ugh, I still need to get something for Alex’s birthday.” She said closing the book. “We’ll have to leave it there.” She sat up and ran her fingers through her hair to tidy it up a bit and began to get to her feet.

“Okay,” he said also getting to his feet, and packing up the picnic blanket and everything that had been left on it with his wand, “where were you thinking of going?”

“Just Scrivenshaft’s, he’s always been into penmanship and stuff like that, has the most gorgeous handwriting.” She said making her way down to the main Highstreet holding her hand behind her for him to take.

They walked down the hill hand in hand, and headed in the direction of Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop. Lana looked around the shop for about twenty minutes before finding something she knew would be perfect for Alex. She went with a few quill feathers from what looked to be one of the most beautiful snowy owls and an ink pot that she had found that would cycle through the colours of the rainbow (for obvious reasons) she had thought to herself, Alex always loved it when she made subtle references to him being gay. Once Lana was sure that she had enough to make Alex happy, she and George made their way back up to the castle to have some lunch with their friends.


	22. Exams? Never heard of them.

The weeks dragged on. Alex’s birthday was a hit, he had loved Lana’s presents and the Quidditch team had thrown him a massive party in the common room. Time seemed to speed up more than Lana would’ve liked, March turned to April pretty quickly, the twins’ birthday passed with a lot of different tricks and a fair amount of canaries and a few quiet moments from Lana and George. April faded into May and the pre exam school work was starting to pile on.

It was May the twenty-fourth and Lana was making her way up to the library after she had finished helping Alex with potions revision, Alex was sitting his OWLs this year and was really starting to feel the pressure. Lana had been helping him out the best she could but he was incredibly smart and she knew that half of it was just natural nerves that were unnecessary as be was going to be fine.

Once she had reached the library, she found a large group of sixth years cooped up in the charms section. There were people there that Lana didn’t even know by name, which was surprising, but the most surprising thing was that Ava wasn’t the only Slytherin there. Lana saw Pucey talking with a Ravenclaw boy, Kathrine and Angelina Johnson studying off the same book and Lex and Fred chucking crumpled up bits of paper at each other.

“Hey guys, what are you all doing?” she said in a tone of mock confusion.

“Studying for exams, Rowle, you might not have heard of them.” Pucey said not looking up from one of the many essays he had sprawled across his desk.

“Oh yeah they, do ring a bell,” she said slipping into a seat next to Fred. Scanning the room, she had seen people who she didn’t want knowing about her and George so she decided to sit as far away from him as possible.

“Still can’t believe you don’t have to sit them this year.” Dot Piped up from behind a very large pile of books.

“To be fair, I have had to battle a dragon and spend an hour in a freezing lake.” Lana began to tie her hair into a high ponytail and took down some of the books that they would need but hadn’t noticed yet. She walked around the area giving the right book to the right person.

“Wait, speaking of the tournament, Lan, aren’t you supposed to be finding out what you’re going to be up against, today.” Diane asked

“Yeah but not until nine and its only just gone seven now so I’ve got two hours to kill.”

“Cool, could you kill them by helping me with this charm.” Said Mandy, sounding like she was on the verge of tears. Lana could see that everyone in that room was very stressed, and that’s when and idea came to her.

“I will Mand, I promise but I’ve got to do something first.” She got up and made her way out of the room, she got a few yells of people asking her where she was going, but she was already halfway down the corridor.

Fifteen minutes later she was walking back up to the library with a box that was full of freshly baked cookies courtesy of the house elves from the kitchens. She slipped through the library doors hiding her front from Madame Pince as food was strictly forbidden in library. She made her way over to the group who had all moved around a bit since Lana had left.

“Where have you been?” Lucy demanded.

“I was getting something to boost moral for you guys.” She said opening the box to show everyone that she had in fact not abandoned them for the hell of it. she put the cookies in the centre of the room for everyone to take and grabbed two for Mandy. The two girls sat at the desk for at least and hour studying over the same charm that Mandy was sure would come up on the test. She then helped Diane with a bit of transfiguration work, once Diane was on her way with how to turn a teacup into a hamster, Lana looked up to one of the many clocks in the library and saw that it was quatre to nine.

“I should probably get going, it’s nearly time.” She said getting up from her seat. As she left, she got a stream of ‘good luck’s as she left, she wanted to point out that she didn’t have to actually do anything today but left it.

As she reached the entrance hall Lana was met with Harry who had clearly made his way from the Gryffindor common room. She and Potter had hit a bit of a dry spot, he hadn’t said a word to her and had been avoiding eye contact since a month after the second task, but she couldn’t figure out why. She decided to start up a conversation with him.

“So, what do you think it’s going to be?”

“No idea.” He said, looking very nervous.

They made their way down to the quidditch pitch and as they got closer saw that it looked different, but could not yet figure out how. And then Potter called out,

“They’re hedges.”

Lana took a close look and saw that they were in fact hedges, they spaned the whole way through the pitch they were only a few inches high but Lana was getting the feeling that they were going to grow taller.

“Oh, Alex will not like this.” She stated bending down to look at them.

“Alex?” Potter was looking at her confused.

“My younger brother, he’s going to be the captain of the Slytherin quidditch team next year, you’ve probably seen him play, he’s a chaser.” She explained.

“Oh yeah I know him, he’s really good.”

“Hello there,” Lana looked up and saw Bagman and the others waiting for them, she stood up and made her way over to them. “well, what d’you think? Growing, nicely aren’t they? Give them a month and Hagrid’ll have them twenty foot high, don’t worry,” he added, seeing Harry and Lana’s expressions, “you’ll have your quidditch pitch back to normal once the task is over!”

“It’s not me you have to worry about Mr Bagman,” said Lana folding her arms over her chest, “it’s my brother you’ll have to deal with.”

“Ah, I see,” Bagman laughed, “now I imagine you can guess what we’re making here?”

No one said anything for a minute and then Krum spoke up with a small grunt.

“Maze.”

“That’s right! A maze. The third task is really straightforward. The Triwizard Cup will be placed in the centre of the maze. The first champion to touch it will receive full marks.”

Fleur obviously thinking that there must be more to this began to question if that was it and Bagman began to explain that there would be obstacles like enchantments and magical animals that Hagrid had provided. Once it was established that everyone understood what they needed to do (and that Lana would go in first, then Potter, Krum and finally Fleur) everyone began to make their way back up to the castle, she wasn’t really sure how but all of a sudden Harry and Krum had disappeared and Bagman had gone wandering off for some reason, leaving her and Fleur.

“Alana?” Lana was about to correct her but decided that she really liked her full name in a French accent.

“I wanted to-to-to” Lana could tell that Fleur was struggling to say what she needed to say in English so decided to help her out a bit.

“We can do this in French if you like? I’m pretty much fluent.”

With that Fleur began to ramble on in French about how she was sorry for her behaviour before the second task, and that it was only because she had also just figured out that she would be retrieving her sister and it had made her very stressed. She then explained that she had actually looked up to how confident Lana had been through this whole thing. Lana had been quite flattered, by all this and assured Fleur that she understood how the pressure can have a tole on your temper. She had also promised Fleur that she and her would stick together more than they already had as they were girls in what had historically been a man’s competition. They then began to discuss their plans for the third task as they made their way back up to the castle and knowing that she and Fleur were going to get along from now on had improved Lana’s mood even more if that was even possible.

Over the next few weeks more and more people began to notice what was happening with the quidditch pitch. Alex was, as Lana guessed, horrified. They had been going for a walk around the grounds when Alex had looked over and seen five-foot hedges growing all over the pitch.

“What have they done to my quidditch pitch?”

“Well it’s not really your pitch.”

“Shut up Lan, I’m having a moment.”

The Gryffindor team were not happy either. They had all been walking down to care of magical creatures when Alicia had seen it.

“Wait, what’s going on with the pitch.” At that the others had turned towards the pitch and seen the mess of hedges growing all over it. Lana had been a couple of steps back from them with Ava and Lucy when they had all stopped to look at their precious quidditch pitch horror etched on their faces.

“I don’t know but I don’t like it.” Said Angelina as Lana had walked past them.

“It’s for the third task, going to grow into a big maze.” Ava called behind them as they had now passed the four Gryffindors leaving them to stand on horror for as long as they needed.

Potter was still acting weird even a week before the first task, he had been avoiding her eyes a lot and he seemed to be starting to just avoid her in general. One night when he had been sat at the Gryffindor table, Lana had come in and sat down with her friends as they now rotated through each table every week, and he had immediately left with Ron and Hermione trailing behind him looking just as confused as Lana felt.

However, Lana had soon figured out why. She had been walking to ancient runes when she heard Potter call for her.

“Lana! Can I talk to you for a minute?”

Lana had turned to see him once again looking very awkward but determined. “What’s up Potter?”

“Right, so, uh,” he seemed almost frantic.

“Just spit it out Potter I haven’t got all day.” She said folding her arms.

“Okay, so first off, I know about you and George, I saw you guys at Hogsmeade when you were having a picnic.” Lana took a moment to process what he had just said, she began to freak out, what if he had told Ron and Hermione? What if it began to spread? Harry clearly sensing her stress began to reassure her, “I haven’t told anyone, I’ve kept it to myself and if I’m being honest it’s been eating me up.”

“Ah, so that’s why you’ve been acting weird.” It all made sense now.

“Yeah, sorry about that but I didn’t know how to tell you guys, you seemed to be keeping it kind of quiet. But that’s beside the point, I need you to talk to the both of them because you’re the only person they’ll listen to in this situation except maybe Mrs Weasley but then that me actually ratting them out to their mother…” he rambled.

“Potter, I have still got to go to class, can you hurry this up?”

“Right, basically Ron Hermione and I overheard them talking about something and it sounded like they were blackmailing someone, but they wouldn’t tell us what it was about, and I was wondering if you could talk to them about it? because they could get into serious trouble for that.” Lana took in everything he had said, blackmail? That wasn’t like them.

“I’ll talk to them, don’t worry.” She said and they nodded to each other and made their way to their respective lessons.

That day at lunch Lana had pulled Fred and George away from the rest of the group to talk to them about what Harry had said.

“Who are you guys blackmailing?” Fred and George both pulled faces of pure shock.

“Who told you about that? Was it Ron?” Said Fred, scanning the field to try and find his younger brother.

“It doesn’t matter how I know what matters is that you guys could get into serious trouble, okay? I have parents in law enforcement. If the person you’re blackmailing is important this will not look good for you, so who is it?”

“Ludo Bagman.” Fred said looking down.

“Bagman?!” Lana was lost for words, how did they think blackmailing someone that high up was good idea?

“Look we have reasons okay? He owes us money.” George said

“How could he possibly-”

“We made a bet at the World Cup and he took our money and has yet to give it back with his end of the bet.” Fred looked very sour as he explained that Bagman was cheating them out of money.

“Okay, why do you need this money so bad?”

“We’re planning on this joke shop and we’re starting to build up a start up and that bet was going to really help us and now we’ve been left with less money than what we started with.” George said solemnly.

“Right okay,” Lana was still processing, “well, I know that Bagman has been getting a bit of a reputation for not keeping up his end of bets, my dad had been hearing rumours about it within the ministry, as far as I’ve heard he’s bankrupt, so you’ve got no hope there, so please, to make sure you guys don’t go straight from Hogwarts to Azkaban, stop blackmailing him.” Lana had come to the decision as she had been talking to them that she needed to be blunt to get the point across.

“Wait really?” Fred looked intrigued, “he’s not got any money? How’s he planning on making up on all of the bets he’s made over the past year?”

“No idea, you guys can figure that part out yourselves, after you’ve finished all your exams.” This seemed to settle the matter.

Everything was starting to slow down in the last few days before the third task, everyone apart from the champions were sitting their exams and the champions were putting their finishing touches on their magical technique.

It was around twenty-four hours before the first task and Lana was curled up in one of the arm chairs reading her favourite book again to calm her nerves, she had been silently flicking through the pages when she heard a voice.

“So, Rowle, how ya feeling?” she turned around to see Tom standing over her.

“Stressed.” Lana and Tom had kept their friendship up really well since the Yule Ball, he had finished that book she had lent him and had been recently helping her get some last few spells perfect before the second task. As much as feelings had definitely resided in both of them probably at the same time, they knew that staying in the position that their parents had put them in was not the best place for them to grow (Tom a lot a quicker than Lana).

“You’ll be fine, you’ve just got go in with a strong head and keep it that way.” Over the months since the Yule Ball Tom and Lana’s relationship had really evolved passed friendship and the silly little feelings to that of a brother sister type relationship. Lana now looked to him for comfort and advice without ever feeling awkward, she honestly wished that she could’ve figured herself out a lot sooner, everything could have been easy by Christmas.

“I know, how are you?” She said sitting up a bit.

“Good, yeah, just planning out everything, how am I going to get my stuff to the new place, if the new place if going to be good,”

“So, who exactly are you moving in with?” Lana knew that Tom had plans to live with someone who also had plans to move out and work for the ministry but she wasn’t sure who.

“Her name is Noemie and she is really nice, she wants to understand British culture because she already understands the language.”

“Sounds good,” Lana looked up to him to see him blushing slightly.

“Is that feeling I sense Tom?” she said coyly.

“No, at least not ones I’m willing to accept yet.” He said curling in on himself a bit.

“Don’t worry, you get over that.”

“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Lana joked but getting the feeling that she was going to get her biggest secret regurgitated back at her, there was absolutely now way that Ava had not told him instantly.

“Aren’t you and a certain Weasley currently hitting it off or maybe even further?”

“Yes, in fact we will have been hitting it off for four months, tomorrow.” She said, and she was right it had been just under four months since the second task.

“Wow, and you really waited that long to tell me?” he said in a tone of mock offence. “You know what I’m so offended I think I’m going to need a lie down.” He began to make his way up to his dorm as he reached the stairs he called back. “Night Lan.”

“Night bro.”


	23. The self inflicted task

It was the morning before the third task and Lana was sat, in a summer dress with a loose cardigan over it, at the breakfast table with the rest of her friends sat around her in full uniform studying for their final exam, practical transfiguration. They ere idly chatting about what might come up when Snape walked over to the group.

“Miss Rowle, once you have finished your breakfast, you are to go into the chamber off the great hall where you will be greeted with your family.”

“Okay, thank you professor.” Lana was not the one to say that it was Fred as Lana had gone into free fall in her mind. Her parents? Here? For how long? How was she going to keep her cover with them? Did she need to at this point? She had been thinking about this a lot, she was their child and she was about to prove herself; she had been planning on not letting them marry her off for ages, but now she considering telling them about her friends and boyfriend. If they were going to be here for a bit (she couldn’t see them staying for too long, work was really hectic for them at the moment) she could tell them as they celebrated with her, if she won that is.

“Lana, Lana?”

“Sorry what?” she said pulling herself out of her spiral.

“We have to go.” Mandy had a hand on Lana’s shoulder. “I’m sure your parents will be fine.”

“Yeah, I know.” She began to fiddle with one of the loose strands that had fallen out of her bun. “Good luck you guys.” They all made their way out of the hall and Lana went back to eating for a bit.

After about five minutes Fleur came over and she and Lana made their way into the chamber. It looked a lot more homely than it had done the nigh Lana’s name had been called, the fire seemed brighter and the chairs seemed comfier. Lana scanned the room and saw her parents near the back of the room, they seemed to be having a conversation with Mrs Weasley, this could not be good. Lana made her way over expecting to have to step on her parents’ feet to make them stop, but as she got closer, they seemed to be having a pleasant time. Her father was chatting with Mrs Weasley about the articles that Skeeter had put out whilst her mother didn’t make eye contact with any of them, Well, Lana thought, it could be worse. As she got closer she began to hear what her father was saying,

“Honestly, no one has come off well in her articles, so I’ve honestly started to ignore her, she’s never been sincere, has she?”

“No, she hasn’t.” Mrs Weasley seemed a bit tense, she was still rightfully unsure of the man in front of her, as far as she was concerned, he was a pureblood idealist and heavily insulted her husband all the time. Lana made her way over and placed a hand on her mother’s shoulder.

“Hi, mum.” She said sweetly. Maureen turned around and pulled Lana into a very tight hug, as Lana was being squeezed to death by her mother, she felt her father’s hand on her head. They stayed there for a minute before pulling away.

“We are so proud of you dear, you’ve done so well.”

“Thanks Dad.”

Lana looked over and saw that Viktor was having a hushed conversation with his mother in Bulgarian and Fleur and her father was talking about English countryside and how it was didn’t live up to French landscapes. She couldn’t see Harry anywhere, Mrs Weasley seemed to also be looking for him as well.

“He was out in the Hall just a minute ago, I’ll go find him.” She and Mrs Weasley had come to a silent understanding as they caught eyes. Lana made her way over the chamber and back into the hall, she saw Harry still sat at the Gryffindor table and had the horrible realisation that he had not expected anyone to come and watch him.

“Potter!” she said trying to get his attention, he looked up at her surprised. “Come on, their waiting for you.”

She made her way back into the room and began chatting with her parents.

“I’m guessing you guys can’t stay, work?” Lana knew that there was no possible way of them staying for the whole day, they were just too important.

“No, we can’t I’m afraid we’ve already taken too much time off as it is…”

“It’s been two hours since when you would normally start work.” As much as Lana understood why her parents couldn’t stay, she was still upset about it. They tend to miss a fair number of things.

“Yes, but the Hargrove trial begins in two hours.” At this Lana stopped. The Hargrove case had been eating her parents alive for the past year, they had finally got enough evidence against him two months ago, but they had been telling her how the trial could last days. “I know that it’s terrible timing but you have to understand how important this is, we won’t stay for the whole thing, as soon as we’re satisfied that we’ve heard enough, we’ll head straight back here to celebrate with you.”

“What if I don’t win?” Maureen’s face softened,

“We will celebrate with you no matter what dear,” she cupped Lana’s cheek with one hand, “you’ve done so well.” Lana sank into her mother’s touch. The touch that had always seemed to pull her out of problems, the touch that always seemed to tell her everything would be alright.

“You go out there and do us proud, you are our child and we will be eternally proud of you.” Her father looked at her with a fire in his eyes that only meant he had never been prouder. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “You have got this, you are an incredibly talented witch, and my daughter, I strike fear into anyone I pass, you can easily do the same.”

“To be fair, you are well over six foot and very broad, it’s not hard for you. I’m tiny.” Lana didn’t really want to strike fear into people, if they were going to respect her id was going to be because she had earned their respect.

“Fine then, attack them from below.” He joked.

They pulled her in to one last hug and made their way out of the room to where they would be escorted out of the castle. Lana watched them as they left, their behaviour had just confirmed everything she had thought about. They were improving and if she won, she was going to tell them, about everything she wanted to tell them, she would leave all of Alex’s stuff out. That was his story to tell. Was she nervous? Yes. But technically she wasn’t breaking any rules George was a pureblood. 

Lana turned back to Harry and the mother of the boy she was dating, she smiled at them. Harry beckoned them over and Lana was face to face with the Weasley she had never shared time with at Hogwarts.

“Nice to meet you, I’m Bill.” He held out a hand and Lana took it. She then looked over to Mrs Weasley with a slight bit of fear in her eyes, she and George had not told her yet, but she knew that Mrs Weasley knew who she was. Lost for things to say to ease the tension Lana panicked.

“Thanks for the jumper.” Lana watched as the woman’s face warm to her instantly.

“Oh, it was nothing dear, my sons adore you.” Lana felt the muscles in her face involuntarily form into the biggest smile.

“If I’m being frank, that is the nicest I have ever seen your parents act, I honestly didn’t know they had the capacity for feelings.” The man that had just introduced himself as Bill piped up. Mrs Weasley gave him a very scolding look but Lana began to laugh.

“Yeah, they very much have the mentality of, I hate everyone except my family, they dote on me and my brother.”

“Yes, well anyway, Lana,” Mrs Weasley seemed to emphasise her name and looked over to Bill, who gave a sudden look of understanding, “we were going to go for a walk would you care to join us?”

Lana didn’t get the chance to answer as Bill had began to laugh, “ah so this is Lana? I can definitely see why.”

“I’m sorry?” but Lana knew full well that Mrs Weasley must’ve told Bill everything she had been getting in those letters. 

“Nothing dear, I’m guessing he hasn’t talked about it yet.” Mrs Weasley laughed.

“Yeah, he’s very loud until something like that happens, then he goes all quiet.” Said Bill after recomposing himself a bit.

Lana knowing exactly what they were going on about, decided to leave it, she wanted to spend her morning to herself, just thinking.

“I’m alright on the walk Mrs Weasley, I think I need some time to myself.”

Lana made her way down to the lake and just sat at its banks. It was a lot more welcoming than it had been the last time she was this close to it. The air was far warmer and the wind was calmer, and her brother wasn’t at the bottom waiting for her to come and rescue her. She sat at the banks of the lake for at least an hour letting the wind carry her hair out of her face. She let her thoughts engulf her, was she really going to do this? Tell them everything? She couldn’t live her life in fear of people finding out, when it had been her friends it had been easier, they were never really around those who would rat her out and no one really paid attention to her, but now that she was this big champion people knew who she was. She still had leverage over them at the moment, no one wanted to piss of the Slytherin champion, but that would soon be ending, and if her parents were going to know it would be because she had told them. She was pulled out of her trance by a voice coming from behind her.

“Good morning miss Rowle, how are you?” Lana turned around to see Dumbledore, dressed in very extravagant robes and a warm smile.

“I’m good, thank you professor.” Lana was very confused as to why he was here. There were students taking their NEWTs and OWLs and yet here he was, sitting down next to her by the lake.

“You might be wondering why I am here,” that was spooky, “you see, you have just accidently stumbled across my favourite spot in the entirety of the Hogwarts grounds.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that sir.”

He seemed to be incredibly jovial considering Mr Crouch was missing and the Tournament was sort of falling apart. “Yes, I often found myself gravitating to this spot even as a student, it always seemed very welcoming to those in need.” Lana stayed quiet for a minute she wasn’t really sure what he wanted from her. “Are you feeling ready to take on the maze today?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Just remember, the goblet chose you out of everyone, they must’ve been a reason.” He had that Dumbledore twinkle in his eyes, that up until now Lana had always thought was reserved for the golden trio. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a school to run.” And he just left Lana there incredibly confused and wondering if she had made the whole thing up in her head. But then again, it was Dumbledore, dude was crazy. Lana laughed at her own thoughts and laid back on the grass. She looked at her watch and saw that exams would all be finishing up in about ten minutes.

Making her way back up to the castle Lana though about what Dumbledore had said, the goblet had chosen her. She was a capable young witch, if she could face dragons, mermaids and a giant maze she could face her parents.

The ancient runes OWL was happening in a class room as it only had about twenty students taking it. Lana waited at the end of the corridor for him and the rest of his class to exit the exam. Alex had inherited their father’s hight meaning he was very easy to spot in the small crowd of students leaving the class room. Once she had found him, she ran over and pulled him into a bone crushing hug.

“You did it! You’re all done” she said as he picked her up from excitement. “Put me down.”

“Nope, too happy, I’ve finished my thing and soon you’ll win yours, this is the happiest I’ve ever been.”

“We don’t know that I’m going to win,” she said a he put her down.

“C’mon, you’ve got this, you get a fifteen-minute head start and it’s you,” Lana could tell that he was over excited from finishing his OWLs.

They made their way back to the great hall chatting idly, once they reached the doors Alex made his way over to his friends at the Slytherin table and Lana scanned the room for her friends, she spotted them with the Weasleys and Harry. Dropping herself into a seat next to Sam and George, Lana began to grab some food from the centre of the table. Mrs Weasley was chatting with Hermione and Ginny about her time at Hogwarts and how she had a small fling with a boy from Ravenclaw, when Lana heard Ron say.

“I mean interhouse relationships can work it just depends on the houses, I think I’ve seen every combination except from a Gryffindor and a Slytherin, that would just be weird.”

“Would it now, Ron?” Harry said in sly tone looking over to George and Lana who had secretly slipped their hands together under the table.

“Yeah, I dunno Ron,” Fred was also now looking over to them with the exact face as Harry. Lana gave them the dirtiest look.

“Don’t make me kill you in that maze Potter, no one would be able to hear you scream.” She said with a deadpan look. Harry held his ground.

“What do you think about Gryffindor-Slytherin relationships, George?”

“Really Harry?” he said leaning in a bit, he lifted both his hands onto the table and Lana’s right hand came with his left, “you really want to go there?”

Fred, Harry and all of Lana’s friends were unfazed this was nothing new to them. Hermione, Ginny and Mrs Weasley on the other hand were looking between Lana and George with looks of pure shock. Lana looked to Ron who seemed surprised but for a different reason.

“Wow, Harry you actually got them to show a public display of affection, I mean I was trying but I didn’t expect it to work.” Lana turned to him, it was now her turn to look shocked.

“You knew?”

“Of course, I knew, I know my own brother well enough to tell when he’s with a girl.”

Lana turned back to Mrs Weasley who was beaming, “Oh, I’m so happy, someone else to keep him on the ground, I mean you’re going to be head girl next year, imagine the influence you’ll have on him.” Lana decided now would not be the best time to explain that she had been helping the twins with joke shop ideas.

“Mum, I don’t need an influence.” Said George indignantly.

They stayed chatting for a bit, and then spent the rest of the afternoon emotionally preparing Harry and Lana. Lana had a lot of younger Slytherin students come up to her during the afternoon, telling her how they hoped she’d win for their house. She spent the afternoon thinking about all the different possible obstacles she would have to face, everyone seemed to notice her vacancy but no one mentioned it. After a while she went and sat with Alex at the Slytherin table she chatted with him about anything and everything just to keep herself distracted before the task. Lana forced some food into her system no matter how much her stomach protested, she knew that she had to eat something for energy. Eventually Dumbledore stood up to address the hall.

“Ladies and Gentlemen in five minutes time, I will be asking you to make your way down to the Quidditch pitch for the third and last task of the Triwizard Tournament. Will the champions please follow Mr Bagman down to the stadium now.”

Lana got up to thunderous applause from the Slytherin table, she held her head high and made her way over to the doors of the hall. Lana turned back to all of her friends and the Weasleys gave them quick wink and pushed opened the grand double doors.


	24. The third task

Lana was chatting with Fleur and Krum as Bagman was pulling Harry off to chat with him in private, he had been doing that a lot recently. The three of them were talking about how to stay in touch after they went back to Bulgaria and France and Lana stayed in England. Fleur was just playing with the idea of coming back and getting a part time job when they reached the pitch. After about five minutes other people began filing their way down to the stands, Lana looked down to the silver and green top that she had changed into at some point, the whole afternoon was really a bit of a blur. She was shivering a bit in her outfit, mainly just from nerves, she wasn’t actually that cold. She was wearing a jacket over a long-sleeved top and some of her black running leggings.

Lana looked up to see McGonagall, Flitwick, Moody and Hagrid heading towards her, they all had a bright red star somewhere on their robes that made them very easy to spot.

“We are going to be patrolling the outside of the maze, if you get into difficulty, and wish to be rescued, send red sparks into the air, and one of us will come and get you, do you understand?” McGonagall was looking at them with a mixture of pride and fear.

All the champions nodded and Bagman ushered the patrollers off to their positions. He then magically magnified his voice and began to explain the points, he announced Lana was in the lead with eighty-six to great cheers from the Hogwarts section of the stands. He then went on about the points for Harry Fleur and Krum but Lana had zoned him out, she scanned the crowd and found Alex sat with her friends and dormmates. She waved over at them and they all waved back. She pulled herself back to Bagman as he said,

“So, Lana on my whistle, three… two… one.” The shrill sound of the whistle echoed through the stands and Lana hurried into the maze, the crowd cheering behind her.

The walls of the maze towered over her blocking out most of the light and all of the sounds of the crowd. Lana illuminated her wand and began to run until she hit a fork in the path. She placed her wand on her hand and just whispered “point me.” Her wand spun once and then pointed to the right fork, meaning that way was north. she quickly remembered what point she had entered and knew that she needed to go north west and took the right fork. As she ran down the new path Bagman’s whistle sounded a second time. Potter was now in the maze.

She continued to run, using her wand to point her in the right direction every time she hit a fork, as she did, she heard the whistle echo twice more at five-minute intervals, all the champions had entered the maze. She continued on path after path. Occasionally she had found that North and West were dead ends and had to take a wrong path and right herself later. She had only been met with mild inconveniences so far. She had run into a swarm of spiders the same size of Nova which was crept her out more than it scared her, she blasted them out of the way and continued.

Her first real problem was when she had run into Hagrid’s Blast Ended Screwts, they were now ten feet long and their stingers more powerful that ever. She looked over to is hard armour and realised there was no way of her getting a spell to affect it from this angle. It charged at her sparks flying out of its mouth. She dogged most of them but a couple hit her shoulder, she let out a cry of pain and turned back to it. It was preparing to charge at her and she once again jumped out of the way, the spikes on the end of its stinger brushed past her leg but it was enough to draw a small amount of deep scarlet blood. Looking over to it as stared her down she remembered all the times Mandy had doted on them, talking about how their belly was the least protected area. She knew what she had to do; it was now her turn to charge at it. She began to run, wand at the ready, she sprinted towards it and at the last moment she let herself fall backwards and slid underneath it. As she reached the right spot she yelled out.

“Stupefy!” She pulled herself up just as the beast collapsed. She knew that it wouldn’t last, but it was enough time for her to get as much distance she possibly could between her and it before it started to rage again. She made her way down a path and ran into Potter, he stared at her shoulder and legs, where her clothes were ripped (and smoking slightly), she didn’t really have time to explain her whole story so just gave him one word.

“Screwts.”

He gave a face of understanding and she ran off into the next path wand still pointing her North. Time seemed to drag on in the maze, Lana ran into another swarm of small spiders which she dealt with pretty quickly. Her next problem was when she was met with a golden mist in the centre of her path, she could turn back and follow a different path, but this one would get her to the centre the quickest. Knowing that if she stayed any longer, she would begin to overthink, Lana ran into the mist. As she did the world seemed to do a one-eighty, she was now stuck to the ground by her feet and her head hung over a sea of stars. If it weren’t for the dire situation, she probably would’ve taken a moment to appreciate the view, the stars twinkled along the landscape creating beautiful constellations that Sinistra could only dream of seeing, there was always too much light at the astronomy tower. Her feet seemed to be glued to the ground. Not wanting to move for fear of falling into the eternal pit of stars, Lana twisted her upper body around. When that proved useless Lana took the leap of faith and lifted her left foot. As soon as she did the world righted itself and she fell to the ground, recomposed herself and began to run again.

Her wand had stopped directing her so she redid the spell, she was still heading in the right direction when she heard the scream. It echoed through the maze, it was shrill, feminine and full of fear, something had happened to Fleur. Lana looked up and couldn’t see any red penetrating the monochromatic sky, Fleur had either got out of the situation or she couldn’t reach her wand.

Lana continued to run, she turned a corner and was met with herself. Except it wasn’t really herself, her hair was darker, her skin paler and her smile meaner. The boggart walked towards her. It was using a very heavy stance that Lana had faint memories of from her childhood but she couldn’t pin point the exact person. The illusion lifted its wand up to Lana and there it was, a fully active dark mark. It stood out like a sore thumb, the black snake contrasting against the pale skin of the arm that was supposed to mimic her own. Lana also noticed something new about her boggart’s appearance. The left hand had a wedding ring on it, implying that she was now scared of being in an arranged marriage, that’s new, she thought as she stared at the golden band on her finger. She didn’t really have time to contemplate what had made her so afraid of arranged marriages, the boggart’s wand had shot sparks at her, she ducked out of the way and then called out,

“Riddikulus.”

The boggarts dark mark was covered over with hundreds of different (and rather terrible) tattoos, that spanned their way across its whole body, Lana let out a loud laugh and the boggart exploded. Lana continued down the paths going in the direction that the wand pointed when she could. She began to run into less problems as she reached the centre. She was making her way down one of the dark paths when she crashed into a very broad body and fell to the ground. It was Krum.

“Sorry didn’t see you there.” She looked up to him to see that his eyes were glazed over slightly. She was about to get up when he lifted his wand to her,

“What are you doing?” her tone was panicked, Krum didn’t seem to have any sign of emotion in his eyes, as far as she was concerned, he could have been a robot. He was still pointing his wand to her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Nothing seemed to be getting through to him, he stared down at her with those glazed eyes and Lana began to realise that he probably wasn’t doing this of his own accord. He only said one word but the mere sound of it sent shivers down her spine.

“Crucio.”

The shivers turned to pain, it was agony, all over her body. Relentless torture. She let out a scream of anguish that must have made it back to the crowd. She rolled around on the floor as if it would put out the fire that was raging in her bones. She couldn’t breathe from the pain. Between her yells she heard someone call out and all of a sudden, the pain stopped. Lana took a deep breath and look up to see Harry pointing his wand at Krum who was now on the floor stunned. She felt him rush to her side and put a hand on her shoulder and she coughed for a minute.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah I’m fine.” Her voice was hoarse, and a dull ache still lingered but the worst was over, she looked over his incredibly ripped shirt and an opening in one of the hedges. He had obviously battled his way through it to get to her, she felt a surge of gratitude towards him.

“I can’t believe that, I though he was alright.” Harry sounded hurt, Lana supposed it was a Quidditch thing, Potter had idolised him as a player.

“I don’t think it was him, his eyes were glazed over, he was clearly under someone else’s control.” She said standing up.

“Who would go to that length just to win?” Lana had never found him more innocent.

“Well, Karkaroff was a death eater.” She looked over Krum’s unconscious body for any signs of harm.

“But he wouldn’t use his own student to do it, he would’ve used me or Fleur, so maybe it was Maxime.”

“Don’t see why, Fleur is very likely out of the running, did you hear her scream?” She lifted her wand and sent red sparks in the air.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t sure if it was her or you.”

“Fair point,” She looked back at him, “right then, I guess I’ll see you on the other side.” The realisation that they were still competitors had flooded over her and she was itching to get going again.

“Right, see you around.” And they went their separate ways.

Lana continued her way through the maze stopping every once and a while to check if she is still going the right way, she had to double back a couple of times and take a different path. She was making her way down a path when a distant glow appeared to her right. It was an intense glow, she followed it as it got brighter and brighter. She sped up, rounded a corner and saw it, the Triwizard Cup. She was in a full sprint, it was nearly hers, the adrenaline in her veins was the only thing keeping her from over balancing. She was so close to the eternal glory. And then she heard Potter bellow.

“LANA, ON YOUR RIGHT!”

She looked up and saw it, a gigantic spider, and she was running right at it. She tried to stop herself but lost her balance and fell, her wand flying out of her hand. The spider was now over her. It tried to impale her with one of its legs, she was able to roll out of the way, but because she moved so quickly, her nose met hard ground and began to bleed. Her eyes were watering but she was able to hear Harry trying to hex it, she felt the spider move away and go for Harry. It picked him up and began to carry him. Lana grabbed her wand started throw her own curses at it in the hope that it would let him go, she owed him that. The spider made its way down the path, in the process it knocked Lana backwards, she flew down the path and crashed into a hedge, now her bottom lip was bleeding was well as her nose. She heard Harry call out.

“Expelliarmus!” It worked, the spider dropped him and turned back to Lana. She lifted her wand and he lifted his and at the same time they both yelled,

“Stupefy!” The two spells met in the air and did what one could not, the spider keeled over crushing a few bushes and blocking the path with its legs. Harry was on the side with the cup, and Lana was on the one without it, she let out a deep sigh, she had lost.

She sat down waiting for Harry to touch the cup so that they could both get out of this nightmare maze. But as she was checking the blood coming from her nose and lip, she realised that there was no sound coming from Harry’s side of the spider, her heart began to race,

“Harry?” her voice shook, “I’m not hearing any movement over there, did it land on you? Are you dead?”

She heard a laugh, and let out a sigh of relief.

“No, I’m not dead, just thinking, you should come and take the cup, you’ve earnt it.”

“What?” Lana was shocked, what was he going on about? She began to make her way through the legs of the spider. Hauling herself over some and crawling under others as they spoke.

“You were right, you were right the whole time, this was your competition, and I got thrown into and ruined it for you, I may not have done it, but you had every right to be upset. This is yours take it.” He seemed out of breath; this was why Lana had found most Gryffindors so insufferable before she began to hold conversations with them. They were so noble, so stupid, he was really about to give up the Triwizard Tournament because it didn’t feel right. She continued to climb over the mess of legs.

“You’ve held your own, and you told me about the dragons I would have been stuffed if you hadn’t told me about that.”

“I had help with the dragons, and you told me about the egg,”

“To be fair, I did have an advantage with the egg, you see the mermaids on a regular basis in the Slytherin common room, it wasn’t hard to put together.”

“But you finished that one first, and I didn’t have anything to breathe underwater with until the morning of the task and it was handed to me, I have scraped my way through this competition, you are the rightful winner.”

“None of that matters, you got here first.” Lana had never sounded more traditional. She made it over the last leg and looked over to Harry, he was leaning against a hedge. His leg was really messed up, it was sticking out at a weird angle and did not look like fun to walk on. “Fine if you’re so insistent on being noble, we’ll grab it at the same time, it’s still a win for Hogwarts, we’ll share the eternal glory,” she blew some hair from her face and smiled at him, “half of eternity is still a pretty long time.”

Harry took a deep breath, “fine, but I’ll need your help getting there.”

Lana made her way over to him and put one of his arms around her shoulder and one of hers around his waist and helped him over to the cup. Once they were close enough, they looked at each other. Harry looked up to her, “On three,” she nodded.

“One… two… three!” They both grabbed the cup at the same time. Lana felt a sensation as if she was being pulled by a hook from the back of her stomach and before she could check to see if Harry was still okay, she was spinning violently.

They laned with a thud, Lana got up and looked around, they weren’t in the Hogwarts grounds at all, she couldn’t even see the mountains. She made her way over to the cup, that was obviously a portkey.

“Did anyone tell you, that the cup was a portkey?” She asked half expecting him to say yes.

“No, do you think it’s part of the tournament?” Harry was attempting to get up on his bad leg, Lana went over to help him.

“I don’t know, but keep your wand out at all times, okay?” She had gone into full mum-friend mode. He nodded at her. She was getting rather hot all of the running and spider fighting had gotten to her, she took off her jacket and chucked it besides the cup. 

She looked around the area and saw that it was a dingy old graveyard. The tombstones here were all ancient and rotting and she could see crows swarming the area. All in all, not the best holiday location, she thought to herself. She was still scanning the churchyard when she saw movement in the distance. A small and stout figure was walking over to her and Harry wand out and cradling, something, Lana couldn’t tell what. Harry let out a yell of pain and Lana felt him fall to the ground clutching his head as he went. She lifted her wand even higher and yelled out,

“Who are you? What do you want from us?” A small but chilling voice spoke up to the man in the shadows.

“Is there a spare?”

The man began to speak, “yes, My Lord, but it is the one we spoke of, she has joined us earlier than the plan foresaw.”

The smaller voice spoke again, “deal with her.”

Before Lana could question who, they were or what, the plan was, she heard the man yell out and saw a flash of light heading her way and everything went black.

*

Lana didn’t stir until she was being forcefully lifted by magic, she heard muffled yelling from Harry, he was clearly gagged, and another sleek voice beginning to speak, “Now Rowles,” Rowles? Were her parents here? “I have your offspring with me,” they were here. “Now if torturing you isn’t enough to ensure your loyalty, let see how you hold up as your own flesh and blood endures the pain, I have felt for the past thirteen years, Crucio!”

Still in the air Lana began to feel the agony in her muscles again she screamed and screamed as the lightning like pain shot through her veins, it never stopped, she felt as if her bones were going to shatter at any moment, she continued to let out shrill screams. She could just hear Harry yelling her name, his voice still muffled, when another voice shouted, one she recognised to be her father’s.

“My Lord, you have our loyalty, just stop it, please!” His voice was strained and full of panic. The pain stopped, as she floated in the air, she thought over the conversation, there was only one person she had known to be called My Lord by her parents. Voldemort. No, no, she thought, he can’t be back, he can’t, and they can’t be calling themselves his loyal followers, this was not how this evening was supposed to go. She was supposed to win the Triwizard Tournament and celebrate with her parents and tell them everything so that they could move on as a family. She thought they were ready.

“Fine then, take her.” The voice of Lord Voldemort, that had haunted her nightmares as a child had never been more terrifying. Lana felt herself being thrown through the air and caught by strong arms. Her father pulled her up and wrapped his arms around her upper-back, she felt his warmth and all of a sudden, the situation didn’t matter, she was being hugged by her father. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him sobbing quietly.

Voldemort began to go into a deep explanation about how he was able to return, it all seemed very intricate and important but Lana couldn’t bring herself to listen, she had sunk to the ground, her dad came with her, they were curled up on the ground and Lana was taken back to when her dad would read her stories before bed. This seemed very similar except that her surroundings were a lot less welcoming and the story she was currently hearing certainly wasn’t going to have a happy ending.

He went on and on about how he had returned, Lana only caught snippets of it, how only a man called Wormtail was the only one to come and find him and how he had a loyal follower and informant inside Hogwarts. He paced his way through the death eaters, as he moved faint flashes from Lana’s childhood memories came through her brain of all the times she had been with her mother and father as they listened to him. Her mother was stood very stiff next to her she was taking short breaths but seemed a lot more composed that her father was. He was still hugging her tightly almost like he thought that she would disintegrate if he let go. Every once in while she would forget where she was and relax into her dad’s arms but she always remembered pretty quickly.

There was suddenly a large amount of movement, Voldemort seemed to be duelling against Harry and Harry seemed to be winning. He had just broken free from the imperious curse and they were now facing each other, two different spells were coming out of each wand, they met in the middle and seemed to be having a battle of their own. Once again Harry seemed to be coming out on top. They were rising into the air, a circular net of golden strings enclosing them. A phoenix song began to sound and ghostly figures were escaping Voldemort’s wand. Lana saw a woman climb out of his wand, then an old man, and finally two figures. One was a young woman with long hair, and a man who looked just like Harry, Lana came to the realisation that these were Harry’s parents. All of the figures were urging him to get the cup and leave, and that they would help him escape. He seemed to know he had to, but he was hesitating, why was he hesitating? And then the reason hit Lana, he was hesitating for her, he didn’t want to leave without her. She knew that this was probably his only shot of getting out of here alive, and she knew that if this was going to be a war, the world would need him. She sat up and shouted to him.

“POTTER, GO! JUST GO, GET OUT OF HERE!”

He turned to her and began to argue,

“I can’t leave you here.” She could tell that he was on the verge of tears.

Lana let her voice soften into a soothing tone.

“Yes, you can, you have to, GO!” He seemed to listen to her that time, he broke the connection. As he did, all of the figures began to swarm Voldemort. Lana watched as Harry ran over to the cup, he grabbed it and her jacket that she had left there, and a bright light formed. She looked up to the sky as he raised up disappearing with the bright light, leaving her in a graveyard with the Dark Lord.


	25. The graveyard

Alexander Rowle had spent hours in the quidditch stands fretting over his older sister. She had gone in first, everything seemed to be going fine. Then the first scream echoed through the stands. Alex, and everyone leaned in, the scream had been feminine, they had a fifty-fifty chance of it being Lana. Fifteen minutes had passed, no red sparks, just when they though that it must’ve been a false alarm Fleur was being helped to a seat next Madame Maxime by professor Flitwick. She was out, and Lana was still going strong.

Time dragged on, Alex was chatting with one of the girls in Lana’s dorm when the second set of screams vibrated through the air. They were was ten times louder, than the first, one hundred times more anguished and definitely Lana. They kept going and going, Alex felt someone grab his hand and looked to see Ava, on the verge of tears. Everyone leaned in, even the teachers were starting to look panicked and then the screams just stopped. Alex was biting at one of his nails and planning on how to tell his parents that Lana was dead, when red sparks shot into the air. He watched as Hagrid rushed to where the sparks had come from. Part of Alex wanted to rush out of his seat and go to the exit of the maze to be with Lana once she came out, but was glad he didn’t when Hagrid dragged Krum out of the maze and not Lana. She must be alright, right?

It felt like hours before something else had happened, there was a bright light and all of a sudden Potter had laned heavily outside the maze, cup in hand. Alex felt bad for Lana but relived that this was all over, he assumed one of the teachers would go and get her from the maze. He was in a state of bittersweet bliss, he didn’t realise something was wrong until he noticed that Potter had let the cup roll out of his reach so he could cling to something else. He was curled around a piece of clothing holding it so tightly that it looked like it might rip, and he was screaming great terrible screams. He was shouting at Dumbledore, something about someone being back and how they had ‘her,’ whoever ‘her’ was, and that they needed to get ‘her’. And as he shouted Alex realised what he was clinging to, it was Lana’s jacket. Lana was ‘her’.

He rushed down the stands. Pushing people, quite violently, as he made it down to where Potter was, people began to recognise who he was and let him through. He began to hear what Potter was saying more clearly.

“He’s back, Voldemort, he’s still got her, you have to help her.” This stopped Alex dead in his tracks. Voldemort? Back? No, it can’t be. He kept moving until Potter was in his line of vision, people were trying to pry him off Lana’s jacket but he wasn’t moving. McGonagall, who had tears brimming in her eyes, noticed who he was.

“Mr Rowle, why don’t you come with me, okay?” She tried to put a hand on his shoulder but he brushed her off, all the emotions that had been brimming up inside him began to flood out. He didn’t even notice he was crying until he tried to talk.

“Where is she? What was he saying? What’s going to happen to her?”

He was practically screaming now, everything else seemed to have gone quiet, Dumbledore had managed to pry Harry off Lana’s jacket, he came over to where professor McGonagall had her arms around his waist.

“Minerva, ensure all the students go back to their common rooms and stay there until further notice, a student is missing.” He was too calm, Alex’s older sister was missing, and Dumbledore only had eyes for Harry Potter, who was being dealt with by Moody.

“And what should I do with Mr Rowle here Albus? it’s his sister that his missing.” She tightened her grip on him as he tried to chase after Potter to find out where his sister was.

“I believe Molly is currently here, I’m sure she would be happy to keep him calm.”

“Yes headmaster.”

Alex felt her move her arms so that one was holding one of his hands and the other was around his shoulders. They walked for a bit as Professor McGonagall called out for this Molly person. Eventually a woman’s voice called back. They went over to her and Alex saw that she was a plump woman with flaming red hair and understood that this was Mrs Weasley.

“Molly, this is Alexander, he is the brother of our missing champion, would you mind taking care of him for the moment?”

“Of course, Minerva, but what is going on?”

“I don’t know Molly. I am merely doing what I am told.”

Alex felt warm arms pull him into an incredibly soft hug, and for the first time since Harry had cried out, he felt himself take a deep calming breath. He heard a very hoarse voice talking to Professor McGonagall.

“What’s happened, where’s Lana?”

“I do not know Mr Weasley, all I know is that I need you all to go to your common rooms.”

“What about Harry?” a female voice asked.

“Yeah, where is he?” a different Weasley was now speaking. Then Mrs Weasley began to speak.

“Ron, George, Hermione, professor McGonagall knows as much as we do, so stop pestering her okay?” Alex felt her turn, “do you think we could go to the hospital wing and wait for any news there?”

“That should be fine, Molly.”

Alex then heard several different professors calling out to all the students telling them to go to there common rooms and not leave unless instructed. Alex faintly heard Mrs Weasley encouraging him to move and felt the arm round his shoulder guide him up to the castle. As they walked up the grounds, he heard whispers of conversations, all taking about the same thing.

The news was spreading. Alana Rowle was officially missing.

*

Except Lana wasn’t really missing. In fact, she was right where Harry had left her.

She was sat up watching the spot where Harry had just disappeared, once she was sure that he was gone safely, she relaxed back to the ground and let out a sigh of relief. She heard Voldemort let out a cry of anger and then felt him turn on her.

“No matter,” he leant down to look at her, “one of my champions may have slipped through my fingers,” he placed a cold finger under her chin and lifted her head. “But I still have the other one.”

He got up and began to pace around the circle once more, “some of you may remember Alana here, from when she was little, one of my last memories of her was about a week before my downfall, she was running around the manor, with her two front teeth missing and her father’s wand. You could see her aptitude for magic from a very young age, and now here she is, seventeen, and top of all or her classes.” Lana did not like this, this felt like something a close family member should say, not him, the man that had just torn her apart from the inside. Lord Voldemort turned to her dad.

“An informant of mine tells me she is being set up to be head girl next year, Alana here is very powerful, my informant in Hogwarts has told me all about her daring feats in tournament and her excellent grades in the classrooms. She is an impressive spell caster, but her real talent is potions, she might even rival Severus if I do say so myself. My informant also tells me of her aptitude for non-verbal spells.” Lana took a minute to think about that, the only person that would have taken notice of her non-verbal spells was Moody, but he couldn’t possibly be with lord Voldemort, he was an Auror, Lana would bet copious amounts of money that the majority of the people that should be in the circle of death eaters, but weren’t, were in Azkaban because of him.

“However, this informant has told me a lot of information I did not want to hear, he told me about how, Miss Rowle here, runs around with Mud-bloods and Half-bloods calling them friends.” Lana did not like him calling her friends those foul slurs but she knew that there was nothing she could do in the moment. “However, that is not even the worst of it, Lana here thinks that it is acceptable to have formed a romantic relationship with a boy from the biggest blood traitor family there is, The Weasleys. I would’ve thought you taught her better than this Thorfinn.”

Lana began to shudder, everything about him was too much for her. Every sound every gust of wind, it was all too much for her to cope with. This whole situation was too much. What did he want from her? 

“Yes, My Lord, I did too.” Her father seemed very scared. Lana could tell that he would do anything Voldemort said, just out of fear and that she had no chance of bringing either of her parents back to the light.

“No matter, I am sure that Alana will only need a little persuasion to ensure that she understands how superior she is. Crucio!”

The pain started again, Lana let out a scream, she waited for her dad to tell Voldemort to stop, but he never did. The agony continued, it felt like it could’ve been hours. She screamed and screamed but no one came to her aid. After about five minutes, Voldemort spoke to her.

“Now Alana, do you understand your superiority?”

She didn’t say anything, she would not give in to him.

“Alright then, we will continue, Crucio!”

The pain doubled and she let out a piercing scream. She thought back to any moment that had ever caused her pain. All the times that she had fallen off a broom or gotten a spell wrong. To the time she fell down the stairs of her manor, when she had fallen out of a tree in her family orchard. She also thought of the dragons, Grindylows, and everything that had been in that maze. All of that combined still didn’t make up half of the pain she was feeling now. 

She began to understand that she would not last much more of this, self-preservation was more important than pride. The pain was too much for her to cope with, silent tears were streaming down her face, she knew she just had to say one word and then it would all stop, all the pain would go away. She opened her mouth; no sound came out. She tried again,

“Yes.” She was able to just squeak the sound out of her mouth. The tsunami of pain still washing over whole body.

“I can’t hear you, Alana.”

“YES.” She screamed it out so loud, she didn’t care what she was saying as long as the pain stopped. The pain suddenly stopped and Lana was left panting for air.

“Very good, I understand now how you are so talented, you are a quick leaner.”

Lana sat there, her whole body was aching and Voldemort began to speak again.

“When I first heard that the real Hogwarts champion was the child of two of my old followers, I didn’t really think much of it, all I thought was that they had betrayed me, and would need to make up for their disloyalty. I decided that I would just kill her in front of you two, so you could understand that I am all you need. But then I heard of her magical ability and how she was the top of her year, and I realised that she could be more to me than just an example. So, to make up for you two denouncing me as soon as you could, I will make a loyal death eater out of her.”

He once again leaned into her and cupped her cheek with his cold bony fingers. “She is just too powerful to waste.” Lana wanted to squirm free from his grip and run in the opposite direction never looking back. However, she knew that if she did, she wouldn’t last long before being killed. Voldemort used a charm to move her into the centre of the circle. He grabbed her left wrist and moved her arm forwards.

“Now the, shall we make it official.” He placed his wand to her forearm. Lana began to shake her head and shout.

“NO, NO, PLEASE, NO, YOU CAN’T, NO, NO, NO.” He didn’t stop.

“The more you resist, the more painful it will be.”

The circle of death eaters began to close up around her so that there were no gaps for her to run through. She was still shaking and screaming when he uttered an incantation. 

It was like he had taken all the pain that had been over her body, and focused it to that one section of her arm. The agony was too much. She screamed and screamed. It didn’t stop. She couldn’t look at what he was doing. Her arm felt like it was being severed off with a boiling knife. She could hear Voldemort laughing as he pressed his wand deeper into her arm. The pain seemed to get worse before it got better, there was a last surge of agony and then it all stopped and she was once left with an ache in her arm.

She looked down and saw it, the physical embodiment of her worst fears. The dark mark, was now forever stationed in her skin.


	26. Dealing with it

Lana stared down at the black snake and skull, that were wrapping themselves into her veins. Lord Voldemort was still talking, but she wasn’t listening. What did this mean for her? what was she going to do? She couldn’t go too deep into it before feeling sick, but she thought about how she was of age, she could go off with Tom and his new friend do her last year of Hogwarts and just pretend this never happened. But what about Alex? She couldn’t leave him. This was all too much.

She stayed sat down and began to listen to what Voldemort was saying. It seemed to be a plan on how to stay incognito.

“Now, obviously Mr Potter will have gone back to Hogwarts and screamed of my return, but as of right now he is losing his edge, if we keep ourselves quiet no one will believe him. This obviously involves you not saying a word Lana.”

He turned to her; she was starting to get up. As she pulled her sleeve down to cover her mark. After thinking for a bit, she had come to a decision, she knew what she had to do, but she just had to get the strength together to do it. She bowed her head and began to speak.

“Yes, My Lord.” She then had a thought. “But if we want to keep this quiet, I cannot go back in to Hogwarts denying everything Potter will claim, it will look too suspicious. I will have to cut off the mud-bloods and blood-traitors slowly.”

“Yes, of course, well done Alana, you really do learn things quickly don’t you?”

“Yes, My Lord, I have let myself slip but I will do better, I promise you.”

“Well then Alana what do you suggest?”

“I suggest that my parents take me to the gates of Hogwarts, they will explain that they had just gotten back from work moments ago, which is plausible as the Hargrove trial is probably still in session. Is it not mother?” Lana turned to her mum who looked shocked at her daughter’s behaviour, but pleased.

“It was only halfway done, when we left, so yes I am certain that it will still be happening.”

“Good, you will explain that you had come home to freshen up and you had planned to come to Hogwarts after to see how I had done. But instead you found me unconscious on the floor of our living room and that something must’ve happened with the cup. I will then send you home under the insistence that you need to get some rest before the trial again in the morning. You will resist at first but leave regardless.”  
“Once you are gone, I will start telling whoever greets us that that it not what happened, that all I remember is touching the cup and then arriving at Hogwarts with you. I will say that several hours of my memory are missing and that it could of very easily of been the dark lord, that took them, after they tell me you are back.” She looked into the red slits of the Dark Lord. “That way, your return can still be something of mystery, but I can still fake allegiance to Potter for the time being.”  
Voldemort began to laugh, he turned to her with an expression of pride that would haunt her for the rest of her life.  
“Very good, Alana,” he turned and looked around the death eaters, “you can all see why I wanted her on our side, quite the brain you’ve got there.” He turned back to her and smiled. His teeth were rotting and his face looked like it might crack under the pressure of him smiling, but she bit her tongue and smiled back.  
“Right then, you heard her.”  
Her mother grabbed her left hand. Her father grabbed her right and they disapparated.  
*  
Alex was curled up on one of the chairs of the hospital wing he had his head resting on the shoulder of Mrs Weasley. Fred was on her other shoulder.  
They had come straight up there and waited. The others had gone to question madame Pomfrey about Harry’s whereabouts, but Alex had just slumped into a chair, Fred and George joined him, none of them had said a word.  
After about an hour Dumbledore had entered with Harry, Alex had gotten up to ask him about everything that had happened but Dumbledore had insisted that no one was to pester Harry. He had then left without another word. Alex had sat back down, Potter looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t. He was put to sleep with a potion and Alex was left to stew. Mrs Weasley had pulled him closer to her and let him rest, Alex reckoned she was hoping that he might fall asleep, but he couldn’t, not at a time like this.  
Ales wasn’t sure how long they sat there, but at some point, shouting had started, there seemed to be a mix up with a dementor and everyone was getting in a fuss about it. Alex didn’t care, his sister was still missing, nothing else mattered. The shouting match only stopped when Snape opened the double doors.  
“Sorry to interrupt this argument, Headmaster. But we now have more pressing matters. The Rowles have just turned up at the gates-”  
“-Oh, I haven’t even thought of what I am going to say to them.” Dumbledore put his head in his hands. Alex, and everyone around him had all sat up in their seat a bit. Snape began to speak again,  
“There will be no need for explanations from you Headmaster, only them. They have Alana with them you see.” At this, Alex let out a sigh of relief and stood up. She was alive.  
“Ah I see, well I will go and greet them now, I’m sure they will have a lot to talk to me about,” he turned to the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione. “All of you are to stay here, understand, we do not know what she has endured tonight, she will not want an audience.” The others all sat down, Mrs Weasley was letting out heavy breaths and George’s knee was bouncing, but they all looked incredibly relieved. Dumbledore then turned to Alex.  
“Mr Rowle, I would like you to come with me, I am sure Lana will need you for comfort.”  
Alex didn’t need telling twice, he shot up out of his seat and rushed to Dumbledore’s side. They made their way down the grounds and towards the gates, when he saw them. Three figures in the night. There was a tall broad figure and two smaller ones. Alex ran up to the one that looked more dishevelled one and pulled her into his arms. She had never felt smaller to him. He put a hand on her head and pulled her as close to his body as possible. She was alive, she was safe, she was home.  
*  
Lana sank into Alex’s arms. He was breathing very heavily and shaking, but his grip on her was firm and grounding. She wasn’t sure how long they were there for, but she didn’t care. She wasn’t in that graveyard and she would never be in that graveyard again, that was all that mattered to her in the moment.  
Her parents were rattling through the story she had told them to tell. Lana could tell that Dumbledore already wasn’t buying it, but that didn’t matter, they knew that he wouldn’t buy that one. It was her side of the story that he had to believe.  
Once they had finished and Lana had insisted that she was fine and that they needed to go home, they turned and vanished into the night. Lana then immediately turned to Dumbledore.  
“Headmaster, I don’t know what happened, but that certainly wasn’t it,”  
“What?” Alex looked confused, but Dumbledore was taking it in his stride.  
“Yes, I figured as much, that completely goes against what mister Potter has told me. “How much do you know?”  
“Nothing sir, all I remember was touching the cup and then arriving here with my parents, several hours of my memory are gone.”  
“Ah, I see. He’s definitely trying to cover his tracks, isn’t he?” Dumbledore had a joking air to him, he seemed awfully calm all things considered. Lana continued to play her part.  
“I’m sorry sir, but who’s he?” She was leaning on Alex who still had his arms around her.  
“I am afraid to tell you that Lord Voldemort has returned, and that you were there to see it, at least that’s what Harry has told me, and I believe him.”  
“What? No, he can’t be back.” Lana didn’t like this, all this deceit, but she knew that she didn’t have any other option.  
“I am afraid so, but it is far to late at night for this. You have still got injuries from the maze, and everyone is in need of some sleep.”  
They all made their way back up to the hospital wing, Alex was supporting Lana as they went. Her leg was still cut from the screwt, her whole body was aching and her arm was throbbing painfully. The aftermath of the mark was starting to set in. It wasn’t a particularly long walk but Lana was definitely slowing them down a bit. Alex was telling her everything he knew about what had happened, unaware that she knew far more than she was letting on. They reached the doors of the hospital wing and everyone who had been sat in there looked up.  
Madame Pomfrey was heading over to help her but Lana didn’t notice, she only had eyes for one person. She rushed past the matron and straight into George Weasley’s arms. They didn’t say anything they just stood there, their foreheads touching. He felt warm and soft, he had his arms around her upper back and she had hers on his chest. He began to speak; his voice was hoarse but she could sense the relief coming off him.  
“I thought… I thought-”  
“Best not dwell on these things, okay?” her voice was barley a whisper. “I’m here now, and that’s what counts.”  
They were interpreted by a curt cough. “Now, if you two are quite finished, I would like to look over my patient please.” Lana turned to see a rather angry madame Pomfrey and a very bemused Dumbledore. She limped over to a bed and sat down, letting madame Pomfrey heal up her leg and shoulder, Dumbledore looked like he was about to leave so Lana called out.  
“Professor, can I please speak with you when madame Pomfrey is finished?”  
“Of Course, I will be in my office, waiting for you.” And he left without another word. Land sat as Madame Pomfrey healed her cuts. It stung but she knew that she had endured worse tonight. It was very quiet; Lana wasn’t sure when it happened but George’s fingers where now intertwined with hers. Alex had crashed and fallen asleep on Fred’s shoulder. Fred was letting it happen he seemed too tired to care. It was almost silent and then a small voice spoke up.  
“Lana?” she looked up to see Harry sitting up and staring at her.  
“Hey, Potter.” She said gently  
“You’re not dead.” His voice was strained and he looked exhausted, but he was alive and safe. “What happened?” Everyone leaned in waiting to hear her side of the story.  
“I don’t know Potter; you know more than me at this point. My memory has been wiped. I didn’t even know he was back until Dumbledore told me.”  
Harry looked disappointed, but that was quickly replaced with relief. “Oh, well at least you’re alright.”  
They stayed quiet until Lana was fully healed up, it didn’t take too much longer. Once Madame Pomfrey was happy that Lana was all sorted, she allowed her to leave and go and speak to Dumbledore. She turned back to Alex and the twins.  
“You guys go to bed, I’ll see you all in the morning.” They looked as if they were all going to argue, so she cut in. “No, you are all hanging, if you last ten more minutes without collapsing, I’d be surprised. Go to bed, I’ll be fine on my own.” Alex nodded with a yawn and Lana made her way out of the doors and towards Dumbledore’s office.  
She had been to Dumbledore’s office only once before, in her fifth year after she had punched Marcus Flint in the face. Let just say Flint never shouted at Alex after a game ever again. She reached the gargoyle and realised that she didn’t know the password to get in. But it didn’t seem to matter. The gargoyle moved before she could even open her mouth and revealed the staircase, which she took. Once she had reached the door, she heard voices. They weren’t shouting but they were arguing. She knocked and the voices stopped, the door flew open and she was met with Dumbledore and Fudge.  
“Ah, Alana I’m glad to see we’ve got you back all in one piece.”  
“Thank you minister.” She looked to Dumbledore.  
“Cornelius I was hoping to have a conversation with Lana her, alone. So, if you wouldn’t mind.” Fudge looked scandalised.  
“But we have not yet finished with our conversation, Dumbledore.”  
“I have said what I wanted to say, goodnight.” Dumbledore looked as if he could not wait to see the back of Fudge. Lana choked on a laugh as she saw Fudge’s face, he was not happy. He made his way out of the door, muttering as he went down the stairs.  
Dumbledore moved to sit behind his desk and gestured for Lana to sit in one of the seats in front of it. She moved herself over to one of the seats. She was suddenly more aware of how she looked. Dumbledore’s office was pristine and neat, and she was sat in it whilst being covered in mud, blood and Merlin knows what else. Her clothes wee ripped and her hair was a mess. She looked incredibly out of place.  
“Now, I’m guessing you would like me to tell you everything Harry has told me?”  
Lana shuffled in her seat and began to speak. Her voice was beginning to reflect how tired she was. “No sir, you see that won’t be necessary,” she pushed up her sleeve to reveal the Dark Mark on her arm, “I remember everything.”  
“Ah, I see,” Dumbledore looked shocked. “You’ll have to excuse me, it’s just I never expected Voldemort to brand someone so young, but I guess he must’ve seen potential in you.”  
“Yes sir, he said that he had an informant on the inside that was telling him about my magical ability, and that he was going to use me to repay my parents for abandoning him.”  
“But you clearly have other plans, otherwise you wouldn’t be here.” He surveyed the mark on her arm with great interest.  
“Yes sir, after it happened, I went down a bit of a spiral, but after a while I decided that it was there and there was nothing I could do about it. I decided to make the best of it, so this is me making the best of it.” She took a deep breath and then blurted it out. “I want to spy for you.”  
It was a bit quick but Dumbledore seemed to understand what she had said. “And what do you mean by spy?”  
“I want to act like I am one of his followers, but secretly be working for you, feeding information back, telling you what he’s up to, you know?” Lana had thought this over several times since coming to the decision in the graveyard, and she had come to the conclusion that this was the best thing she could do, circumstances had changed a lot in a short amount of time and she just had to roll with the punches at this point.  
“Are you sure? This will not be an easy task.” He seemed concerned but Lana was determined.  
“Yes sir, I have been through far too much tonight and I want it all to be worth it.” The nights events had lit a fire in her.  
“Alright, if you are sure, you will need to ensure he trusts you.”  
“I think I have already managed that sir, you see, he had obviously planned to kill Harry and then brand me, but that didn’t happen, Harry survived and alerted you. He needed a way to make sure he could keep this as quiet as possible, and I came up with one. I made the whole plan of having my parents say one thing and having me counter it so it looked like I was still aligned with Potter, so it wouldn’t be too suspicious. That alone has built his trust in me greatly.”  
Dumbledore was beginning to look very impressed, “So, what has he asked of you?”  
“As far as I can tell, he wants me to keep us my appearances for the moment, and cut people off when the time is right.”  
“Then you will do exactly that, you will follow every demand he makes, I am sure that he will not ask too much of you whilst you are in this school with me.”  
“Yes sir.”  
“And Lana, you must not tell anyone else of this, it will be safer if it is kept between you and me. I know it will be difficult to lie to your friends and brother, but it must be done.”  
Lana had prepared herself for that, she knew that she had to do it, this was going to really help the effort against Voldemort, if she was going to do this, sacrifices where going to need to be made.


	27. Something Always has to go Wrong

Lana had made her way back to her common room, she was supposed to go back to the hospital wing but she couldn’t stomach being in that bright room with all of those teachers and people. There was a dog in there for some reason, it just all seemed a bit too much. So, she slipped through the portrait hole expecting to find an empty common room, but instead found a small gaggle of Slytherins sat in the centre of the room. But what really surprised her was that it wasn’t just Slytherins, Lana could see a few Hufflepuff scarfs and Ravenclaw and Gryffindor jumpers and realised that it was her friends. Alex was in the centre of the group he seemed to be telling them everything that had happened. She stepped closer, they all seemed to be so roped into what Alex was saying that none of them noticed her. She let him explain that she wasn’t hurt and that as far as she could remember nothing had happened, but that her memory had clearly been altered.  
“Alex, I thought I told you to go to bed.” She had placed herself on one of the arms of the nearest sofa. Everyone turned to look at her, they were all holding the same expression of shock. She didn’t get to see much of them before a flash of red was coming towards her and she was being knocked over. Ava had sprinted at her and tackled her into a hug on the sofa, Lana accepted the hug and felt others surround them. She soon realised that she was the bottom of a massive pile on. She didn’t mind as much as she normally would, she was just happy to see all of them again, there had been several moments in that graveyard where she wants sure she would.  
They got up and Lana began to explain what happened to her first hand. She talked them through what happened in the maze, being completely honest all the way through. Everyone seemed disgusted that Krum had been forced to torture her, she explained what had happened with the spider and how she and Potter had decided to touch the cup at the same time. Then she started lying. She said that she touched the cup and the next thing she knew she was at the Hogwarts gates with her parents.  
Once she had finished and everyone had asked every possible question they could think of, Lana began to usher people to bed. She was keeping an eye on Alex the most, she watched him go up the stairs and made sure he wasn’t coming back down. Within ten minutes, the common room was deserted. Lana sat in the fire light and just let the warmth wash over her. She tried so hard to let her brain just be empty, but it was so difficult. Everything was weighing on her, the evenings events, that she couldn’t tell anyone about. All of her new responsibilities, that she couldn’t tell anyone about. She lifted her sleeve again and looked down at the mark on her arm. She felt bile rise in her throat, and her body began to shudder with great sobs that echoed around the common room. As much as Dumbledore had talked her through the risks of being a spy Lana didn’t think he really understood how much pressure this was going to be for a seventeen-year-old.  
She was supposed to be focusing on her NEWTs next year and instead she would have to be leading a double life and cutting off everyone she loved. She continued to cry; it didn’t seem like it would stop. She couldn’t imagine herself not talking to her friends every day, and George, what was she going to do about him? They had been going so strong and she had just got the approval of his mother. Her breath had become hitched and short, tears were streaming down her face. She hugged her knee’s for comfort. Now wasn’t the time for her to be spiralling down a pit of despair, if she was going to do this, she would need to be able to keep her emotions in check.  
She got up, wiped her face with her sleeve, and made her way up to her dormitory. Once in there she found that everyone else had already fallen asleep, they must’ve been staying awake to see her and they had now crashed. Lana grabbed her PJ’s from her bed and slipped into the bathroom to have a shower. Lana styed in the warmth of the water for far longer than she’d like to admit. She spent most of her time watching the mud and blood going into the drain, mainly because it meant that her arm wouldn’t be in her peripheral vision, meaning she could see the mark, because anytime she did, she felt sick. She knew that she’d have to get used to it eventually, it was going to be on her skin for the rest of her life. Once she was fully clean and, in her nightclothes, Lana brushed out her wet hair, and began to apply some of the magical creams, ointments, and serums for her skin. She thought she better take care of herself the best she could now to keep herself positive later.  
The room was beginning to fade in and out of her vision she was so tired. Nova was curled up on her bed purring softly, Lana sank into her mattress and pulled him closer to her chest. He didn’t seem to mind; he could obviously sense the emotions coming off her. She was asleep in minutes, all of her problems behind her, for the time being.  
When she woke up the next morning, the dorm was deserted, she got out of bed and chucked on her jeans and Weasley jumper, except it wasn’t her Weasley jumper, it had a large G on it. she wasn’t sure when she stole that off George but she must’ve. She contemplated taking it off but decided she would be fine; her parents already knew now and it would help keep up her cover of still being aligned to Harry. But was that a cover? Because she was still aligned with Harry, but secretly pretending to be aligned to Voldemort. It was too complicated, all that mattered was that it was fine for her to wear the jumper.  
She made her way down the corridors and saw that they were all deserted too, it was starting to get weird, she decided to go down to the hospital wing. Once she reached it, she found Harry on his own. She smiled at him softly, he was the only other person who understood what she had been through but he could never know. He smiled back at her, and patted the end of his bed for her to sit.  
“Sup, Short Snout.” Lana stopped where she was standing, confused.  
“What?”  
“It was the dragon you faced, and it was definitely the dumbest sounding one, so that’s what I’m calling you.” Lana let out a laugh and sat down.  
“Alright then, then I’m going to call you….” She thought for a minute and then it hit her. “Moral Fibre.” Harry’s face morphed into a face of pure disgust. “What? that’s what they said when you took the mermaid song seriously and tried to save everyone.”  
“Yes, but I still got second for that, so…”  
This was the first conversation, since Lana had entered the Maze, that felt light and calm, it was as if Voldemort had never happened.  
They stayed chatting for a bit, Lana was now fully sat cross legged at the end of Harry’s bed. He had explained that Dumbledore was talking in the breakfast hall, to explain that no student is allowed to question either of them. Harry had also explained that about an hour Lana had left Fudge, Snape and Dumbledore had come in and restarted their argument, it was clear that Fudge did not believe them. Lana looked around the room and saw that Harry’s dog had gone.  
“Where’s your Dog? He looked like fun.”  
“Oh, um… well… you see.” He was saved the trouble of explaining where his dog went by madame Pomfrey shoving two bowls of cereal under their noses. They began eating them, and Harry looked over to a sack on his bedside table.  
“Fudge dropped this off at some point while you were still missing, I’m guessing we are supposed to split it.”  
“Alright then,” Lana was going to let him just have it, she didn’t really need the money nor did she want it, she didn’t really feel like she deserved it. But Harry looked like he wouldn’t take no for an answer. She conjured a sack of her own and magically divided the thousand galleons into two equal portions of five hundred.  
“Nice jumper by the way.” Lana remembered that she was in a Weasley jumper that didn’t have her initial on it.  
“Thanks, it’s Ginny’s.” they both began laughing, it wasn’t even that funny but they both needed the laughter.  
Lana spent the rest of her day by the lake with the whole sixth year gang, they had laid out several picnic blankets and were just relaxing. They were shouting out sappy Celestina Warbeck lyrics at the top of their lungs. Lana and George were standing at the top of one of the sloped watching as Lucy and Fred both danced around Diane who was still trying to maintain some sort of homework schedule. George had his arms wrapped around her shoulders and she was holding onto them. She hadn’t been doing as much as the others, just taking in these moments. She wasn’t sure how many more she had. She let the breeze fall on her face, people had seemed to notice how quiet she was but put it down to her getting over the maze, none of them knew about her encounter with the Dark Lord and it was going to stay that way.  
Or so she thought. Her friends had expected her to be quieter for the first few days but what they didn’t expect was for her to stay quiet for the final month of their school year. Everyone had asked if she was alright at least once and she had always replied with a quiet, “I’m fine.” Or a “Yeah I’m good.” No one looked like they believed her. she just didn’t want to make fake excuses for why she was so low, but she couldn’t tell them what was going on. As much as she wanted to sit them down and just explain everything, it wouldn’t be safe for all of them to know.  
She hadn’t planned for him to find out, she didn’t want this to happen. But she had to admit it was her fault, if she was going to be stupid enough to be sat at the lakeside staring at the mark, she couldn’t be surprised when George sat down next to her and started staring at it too. She covered it as quickly as she could but the damage had already been done.  
“Bit of an interesting tattoo if you ask me, when did you have the time to get that done?” He had would be calm, tone but Lana could tell that he was not happy. She tried to mirror his attitude but her voice was beginning to shake.  
“In the graveyard, you-know-who is a surprisingly good tattoo artist, especially considering I was screaming and trying to claw my way out his grip, that tends to make it tricky.” Her voice began to really waver. She felt him sit down next to her and put an arm around her, she rested her head on his shoulder; silent tears once again found themselves running down her cheeks.  
“So, I’m guessing all of that memory wipe stuff isn’t true?”  
She nuzzled herself into his crook of his neck. “No, it’s a story I made up for him to make him trust me, I remember everything, the torture, his face, everything.” She felt his grip on her tighten. It took a little longer for him to speak again.  
“What do you mean by ‘make him trust me’?” Lana sat up and ran through all of the possible answers she could say, she had told him this much, might as well tell him everything.  
“I’ve offered to spy for Dumbledore and he’s accepted.” He moved so suddenly that Lana had to catch herself a bit.  
“What?”  
“I’m going to spy for Dumbledore, you-know-who wants me as a death eater so much, he’s trusting me almost blindly, I can’t pass that opportunity up.”  
“But Lana, that’s going to be so dangerous, what if you get found out? what about all your muggle-born friends? what about me? were you just going to leave us and start acting like a death eater and just cut us off without an explanation?” He seemed more panicked than upset.  
“First off, I understand the risk I’m taking, second off, yes, and I’m still planning to.”  
“Lana, you can’t cut everyone you love out of your life for this.” He looked at her with a mixture of obviousness and awe.  
“But here’s the thing, I can.” She took a deep breath, “it’s just going to be really difficult.” She shuddered at the thought of everyone she loved believing she was a death eater. “If this is what is necessary to help defeat him a second time, I am not going to let that go because I might get hurt.”  
“And what were you planning to do with me? Just break up with me out of nowhere?” his tone had turned a bit harsher now, but Lana could tell that he wasn’t angry with her.  
“Well I thought that if I started acting like a death eater, you would break up with me.” She had thought thar part over a lot, it was hard to think about but she needed to take everything into account. But every time it got too much she thought of a fantasy where this ended quickly and she was back with her friends and everything was back to normal.  
“You make a fair point; I would have not stuck around long if you were going round calling people mudbloods left right and centre.”  
Lana thought for a moment, she had prepared for every possibility except this one. She didn’t know why; she should’ve planned for this. She wasn’t really sure what she was supposed to do now? Then a terrible thought had entered her head, but it seemed to be the only reasonable one.  
“George?” He hummed to say that he was listening. “What if we put this on pause for a bit? you know until this is all over.”  
“What? Lana, we don’t know how long that would be.”  
“I know but it’s not safe is it?” As much as these five minutes of him knowing had definitely been the most relaxed five minutes Lana had had in a long time, they couldn’t keep this up, not with her about to infiltrate the ranks of Voldemort.   
“It would also look really suspicious if we just ended it now. People will talk.” That was a fair point, she was supposed to be keeping relationships us for the minute. She just didn’t see a way out of this.   
“But-”  
“Listen Lan, we’ve kept this quiet for months, we are going to still keep it quiet for a while, why can’t we just go silent with it? y’know, have only us know.” Lana supposed that could work, they could easily fake a breakup when the time was right, so that everyone thought. “If this is what’s necessary, I’m not going to let that go because I might get hurt.”  
“Quoting myself at me to get me to listen, smart.” She leaned on him again. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her chest. Maybe having one person she could talk to wasn’t such a bad thing.


	28. Life Goes On

The last month of Hogwarts was gone pretty quickly and before she knew it Lana found herself sat in a train compartment on her way back home. Lana was thinking back to the final speech Dumbledore had given before Beauxbatons and Durmstrang had left. He had talked about unity and how people would need to put their differences aside in times like these. He had also told everyone of Voldemort’s return, it looked like only a handful of people believed him. Malfoy and that lot were practically laughing, but the majority of the Slytherins had listened to Lana’s story seemed to be at least thinking over what Dumbledore was saying and taking it to heart.  
The goodbyes that came after the speech were solemn, Lana and Fleur vowed to write over the summer, and Krum seemed interested in keeping in contact too. He had not stopped apologising about what had happened in the maze, even though he had nothing to do with it. They had a group hug of all the champions (Lana had to drag Harry into it by his collar), and they waved the students goodbye as they boarded their ship and carriage respectively. Lana remembered seeing Dot talking very closely with the Durmstrang boy she met on the first night, she saw him plant a kiss on her hand before boarding the ship. She turned, all flustered, and noticed Lana looking at her, Lana had a very smug look on her face, she laughed as Dot shouted,  
“Oh, shut up!”, at her and turned to see Tom talking with the French girl as she got on to the carriage, it wasn’t as sappy as Dot’s goodbye, mainly because they would be seeing each other in a week’s time, but it was still pretty emotional. Once the two schools had left the grounds Hogwarts students had gone back to finish packing. Lana was making her way back to her dorms to change into something comfier for the train, when she saw Fred and George doing a display of one of their products and had a thought.  
She scanned the crowd and saw Alicia Spinnet and headed over to her. Once she was close enough, she tapped Alicia on the shoulder. She turned around and smiled at Lana. Everyone seemed to be acting a lot nicer to Lana now that she had sided with Harry, they all interacted with her normally and like she was one of them, apparently you couldn’t just stand back, you had openly denounced your family and act like Harry’s number one fan to get all of Gryffindor house to like you. Lana still couldn’t stand most of them, but she had definitely warmed up to more of them than just Lucy.  
“Everything alright?”  
“Yeah, I just need your help getting into the Gryffindor dorms.”  
“Why?”  
“I need to drop something off without those two knowing.” She gestured to Fred and George. Alicia gave her a knowing look and beckoned for Lana to follow her. They made their way through the corridors and reached the Gryffindor common room. Their path was blocked by a painting of a rather fat lady, she looked down at the two girls.  
“What are you bringing one of that lot in here for?” she asked, looking down at Lana with a stern expression on her face.  
“Never you mind.” Alicia said irritably, she then said the password and the portrait swung open revealing a very homely living room set up, a fire had been dancing in the grate and sunlight was streaking through the windows. The common room was practically deserted with only a few people sleepily strewn across arm chairs. Lana turned back to Alicia.  
“Thanks.”  
“No problem.” She said sweetly and she headed up to her dorms to finish her packing. Lana made her way up the boys’ stairs and into one of the sixth-year dorms. She scanned the room; they had all packed their stuff up and the room was practically empty. The beds were made, the trunks full and the floor clear of clutter. Lana slipped into the warm room and scanned for a trunk with the right initials, she found one that had FW on it, meaning it must be Fred’s.  
“That’ll do.” She muttered to herself as she headed over to his trunk, she clicked open the locks with her wand, she then took her bag off her shoulder and reached for her ink, quill and five hundred galleons. She slipped the galleons into Fred’s trunk and wrote on the paper.  
Take it, or else!  
She really hoped that they knew what she wanted them to use it for, they still hadn’t gotten their gold off Bagman so hopefully this would make up for it, god knows she doesn’t need it herself. She then slipped out of the room, back down the stairs and out of the common room. She made her way back to her dorm to finish up her last bits of packing.  
So now she was sat on the Hogwarts express trying her best to not worry about her future too much. She was curled up with the book she and George had been reading. They had finished it but she was reading it once again, it was a sort of safety blanket to her, it was almost as if that because she was in a different world, nothing in the real world could hurt her.  
Nova was curled up in her lap and the rest of the girls were strewn across the compartment doing their own thing. Lana was only half reading the book, she was mainly looking out the window watching the countryside pass her by. And listening to the conversation her friends were having.  
“I’m still not sure if he’s actually back, Potter’s got a bit of a track record of making these things up.” Mandy was sat on the floor reading the Daily Prophet.  
“He wouldn’t go that far.” Said Sam as she shuffled in her seat and put on some of her headache cream.   
“Dumbledore believes him and that’s all that matters for me.” Lucy said as if it settled the matter.  
“Of course, you trust Dumbledore.” Said Ava scoffing slightly, with the obvious Slytherin sentiment of not liking the man.  
“So, what if I do? He’s a great man.”  
“I believe Potter.” Lana’s voice was extremely quiet and she was still not looking up from her book, but her tone had such a finality to it that it ended to conversation completely. Lana began to zone out of the conversation again and didn’t pay any attention until she heard Mandy say.  
“You know I’m really going to miss the Screwts.”  
There was a chorus of “What’s” and Sam turned to Mandy with a look of disbelief and said,  
“Mandy they nearly killed us several times.”  
“That’s only because we worked with them so closely.” She said defiantly.  
“Mand, I don’t even take care of magical creatures anymore and I had to actively avoid them anytime I when get too close to Hagrid’s hut.” Lana countered.  
The Screwts argument continued for a little while but Lana had stopped listening completely, she was once again staring out of the window as the countryside passed her by. She was thinking about the uncertainly of her future, about how everyone in that compartment would hate her this time next year. She felt her stomach turn.   
“If you’re bored of us Lan, you can go and sit with that lot for a bit.” Lana turned to see all of the girls looking at her.  
“I could never get bored of you guys, but I might go for a bit.” They all nodded and Lana got up scooping Nova up with her. She walked, with Nova in her arms and found a compartment with Fred, George and the Golden Trio, but as she made her way in, she found herself stepping over three bodies that had been forcefully shoved into the corridor, they looked very heavily hexed. Nova jumped out of her arms and made his was over to Ron for some reason.  
“Oh Merlin, not another Cat.” He said leaning back and Nova leaned in.  
“You’ll like this one,” she said sitting down next to George, “he attacked Malfoy last year.”  
With that Ron began to stroke Nova absentmindedly as he finished a game of exploding snap and Lana turned to George. “Speaking of Malfoy, is he one of the three people you’ve hexed into oblivion?”  
“Yeah, but he was saying some really nasty stuff about Harry, Hermione and us, so we weren’t going to let that slide.” Fred was nodding behind him, his lapse in concentration lead to him getting a face full of exploding snap cards.  
Lana spent at least an hour sat in the compartment with them, it was only after she won five games of exploding snap in a row that she sat back to let the others play. She let her head rest of George’s shoulder and felt Nova jump back into her lap.  
She looked around the compartment and saw that there was a jar in Hermione’s bag that looked like it had a beetle in it.  
“What’s this Hermione?” Lana asked pointing at it.  
“Oh, it’s nothing, just Rita Skeeter.” She said this so casually, like it was a common occurrence.  
“Excuse me?” Fred and George were now also staring at Hermione.  
“It’s Rita Skeeter, turns out she’s been scuttling round the school as an unregistered Animagus, picking up stories.”  
“No.” Said George still looking at Hermione like she was insane. But Lana was thinking about an interaction she had months ago.  
“No, it makes sense, I remember ages ago I came down into the great hall and I was ambushed by that pug like girl Parkinson, she kept asking me about the fairness of the scoring and about my personal life, and she had a beetle on her shoulder,” Lana was getting more enthusiastic as she spoke, “it must’ve been Skeeter trying to get a good story about it.”   
When they stared to see the industrial city of London, Lana got up to get her stuff from the compartment with her friends. She felt someone following her, it was George. He looked down the corridor, and when he was satisfied that no one could see them he leaned down and kissed her. She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. They stayed there for a minute before hearing Fred gag behind them. They pulled apart; Lana still had her arms around George’s neck.  
“Just because you have the mind of a five-year-old.” She said still looking at George.  
“I’m guessing you’re getting your fix now, considering you guys are not going to be seeing each other all summer.” Said Fred, leaning against a wall.  
“Well we were before you interrupted.” She said bringing her arms to her chest and leaning forward so her forehead was touching George’s chest. He smiled down at her and rested his chin on the top of her head. She saw Ron mutter something and Hermione smack him in the head, Hermione was looking at them happily, and with a not so subtle look at Ron that Lana understood completely.  
“Well I should probably go grab my stuff, write to me this summer, alright?” She said slipping from under his head.  
“Of course, I will.” He said looking offended at the notion that he wouldn’t write to her.  
“You might have to use a different name though, just make up a French sounding name and I’ll say that you’re a pen pal from Beauxbatons.” She said looking at him with a grin.  
“You really can be devious, can’t you?” He said returning the grin.  
“You haven’t seen anything yet.” And with that she kissed him on the cheek and made her way to grab her trunk, Nova at her heels.  
The train slowed into platform nine and three quatres and Lana hugged all of her friends goodbye, promising to write to all of them, and made her way off the train. She scanned the crowd and saw Alex with their parents. She made her way over, her dad hugged her and she hugged him back but with a lot less enthusiasm than normal. She looked at her family, Alex was wearing short sleeves and the rest of them were wearing long sleeves, all hiding the same thing. She looked to the Weasleys, all smiling at their mum, and to all the other happy families. She felt different, like she was invading on all of these people’s lives just by existing, and she hadn’t even begun to act like a death eater yet. Her parents turned and made their way out of the station Lana and Alex followed. Lana turned back and let out a sigh. Her future was uncertain but she had the small comfort of knowing that it was still, somewhat, in her control.


	29. Letters

It was a brisk summer evening; and a group of university students were playing cricket in one of the empty fields of the countryside. They weren’t really sure who the field belonged to; the most common guess was that it belonged to the family that lived in the manor house at the top of the hill. The house was very well kept, it had an orchard surrounding it and there was a fountain in the lake, but those were the only things that told the inhabitants of the small town below it, that someone lived there. The elderly of the village like to tell the younger children stories of an old witch that lived there, who cast spells on anyone that came too close. The children’s parents assumed that it was just a snooty rich family that sent their kids to private school. They knew there had to be kids. They had been seen running down the hill playing chase when they were little. However, they had never been seen in any of the local primary, or secondary schools, in fact they hadn’t been seen in several years. The locals guessed that their parents had a tight hold on them and did not want their children embarrassing them.

They never realised how right they were, even the stories of an old witch were somewhat true. It had belonged to an old witch, who had then passed it on to her son, who now lived there with his wife and their two children. Their children did go to a private boarding school, just not one they would expect, then again no one in that village would ever have heard of Hogwarts. Only one person in the village was able to make the claim that they had spoken to a member of the family. It had been last summer, and a seventeen-year-old girl had rushed into the main village pub to say that she had met a very pretty girl, around her age, who had claimed to live in the mysterious manor house. She had said that girl seemed very sweet and down to earth but rather odd. She said that the girl had a black cat that seemed to follow her everywhere, and that she seemed almost frightened to join her in the pub and opted to go back up to the house.

She was now sat by the lake listening to the trees, that surrounded her house, bustle in the wind and the distant yells of muggles playing some kind of sport. She had three letters in her hand, one from Thomas Stevens, one from Fleur Delacour and one from Raphael Brodeur her ‘pen pal from Beauxbatons’. She had finished Fleur’s letter, and was pleased to hear that she had got a job at Gringotts and was getting on with a ‘Belle Âme’ as she put it.

She moved onto Tom’s letter, it read,

Lana,

I’m honestly fine, you need to stop worrying so much. The move went fine and the place looks great Noemie has a real eye for this sort of stuff, you should come visit sometime, you’re seventeen so technically you can do what you want.

My parents still haven’t said a word to me and Ava says that my name has been seared of the family tree, but to be honest I never wanted it there in the first place. I’m just happy I was able to smuggle the fund they set up for me when the thought I was going to follow all of their rules. It’s really helped me get this place set up.

Auror training is going well, it’s difficult but I’m managing. They are all so nice, and even though they are a bit scary it’s been a really welcoming. There’s this one girl called Tonks, you’d love her, she’s a metamorphmagus and one of the funniest people I’ve ever met. There’s this guy called Kingsley and he’s so cool, Lana you don’t get it, he’s such as a badass. He’s really taken me under his wing and shown me the ropes.

Lana let out a laugh, she loved seeing Tom’s enthusiasm through his writing.

Muggle London is honestly kind of weird, no one stops to say hello they all just pass you by not looking at you, but the scenery is nice. I have to say I don’t like Fudge much, he seems very rude, he’ll storm into offices and check all of your belongings just make sure you’re not secretly working for Dumbledore. And his assistant Percy is so annoying, he’s one of your boyfriend’s many brothers, but apparently, he’s denounced his family completely and says his loyalty is with the ministry.

I hope the rest of your summer goes well, all things considered, and tell me when that Head Girl badge arrives.

All the best

Tom.

Lana held the letter to her chest for a minute before promptly setting it on fire. That’s the thing with getting letters from someone who’s abandoned the pureblood way of life, you can’t have anyone else seeing them. Life now was weird, Lana hadn’t been asked to do much yet, mainly because her parents didn’t want Alex to get suspicious, but it was honestly too late he was so perceptive. Lana was sure he had figured out that she had been branded, she wasn’t sure if he had been able to figure out her plan for it.

Her parents had never acted weirder, they would disappear for hours on end and not say a word when they returned. They had different people over all the time, they would all look through Alex and give Lana a curt nod and that was it. He, had been over once or twice. It wasn’t hard to tell. His voice echoed through the halls and sent a cold blast that slammed several doors. Alex would always come into Lana’s room when that voice sounded through the house and they would drown him out with the weird sisters.

Lana opened her last letter, it had the messy but endearing handwriting that she loved so much, she saw it on small post it notes all over his school books, not that it had educational notes on it, it was always new joke shop ideas or a stupid quip that he didn’t dare say in front of Snape. She had a small box that had once had some expensive jewellery in it, but it was now filled with folded bits of paper that had been passed to her in Transfiguration lessons telling her she looked cute or that her spell work was impressive. George Weasley’s handwriting was etched into her brain.

Lan,

How ya doing?

Fred made me promise I would say hi to you for him so this is it.

Life at where we are staying is good, Harry’s just turned up, nearly brought the house down he was shouting so much, dude’s been cooped up with muggles for too long if you ask me. He’s got a hearing to see whether or not he’s allowed to come back to Hogwarts but I suppose you’ve already heard about that, what with your parents being lawyers and all.

She had heard about that.

Look I’m sorry I cant tell you about what’s going on, I know you probably know more than me considering what you are doing for Dumbledore, but I’m not supposed to know about that so I’m going to stick to the rules Dumbledore had set out for me.

Moody was trying to insist we keep an eye on you, as you’re a child of death eaters who could be an asset to you-know-who. He wants to make sure you don’t end up in his ranks. Mum, Bill, Lupin and pretty much everyone who’s met you has told him countless times that you’re not someone to worry about, I don’t know how they’ll all take it when you start acting like a death eater, but it won’t be for long and they’ll all be thanking you when this is all over.

Tom’s joined us, Kingsley brought him, he gets on really well with Bill and Tonks. He’s a right laugh at dinner, tells us about all of his different Hogwarts adventures. Mind you I don’t see him much, Auror training takes up a lot of his time, he also won’t shut up about his French girlfriend but I don’t shut up about you so I guess it’s fair. Congrats on passing your apparition test, I mean Fred and I passed weeks ago but you had a lot on your plate during the school year.

Fuss Nova for me, I miss him.

I love you, and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.

George. 

Lana once again set the letter aflame one she had read it over a couple of times. She loved when he wrote to her, because he just wrote like he was talking to her and it felt like he was actually there with her. She once again sat there in the still night watching the sky change colour and letting the wind cup her cheeks. She stayed there for another five minutes before she heard her mother’s voice calling to her.

“Alana, your dinner is ready.”

Lana got up and apparated into the kitchen, her mother was so used to her doing that, that Lana was met with a plate as soon as she appeared in the room.

“You’ll need to eat in your room, we are having a meeting.” She didn’t need to know what ‘we’ meant, she had actually been in a meeting before, so she could be introduced to all of his new followers. It was a weird interaction, they would always talk about trying to obtain something, but Lana wasn’t high up enough to know what something was. She decided to walk to her room so she could hear snippets of the conversation. She heard Voldemort’s voice echo through the room.

“If you want to deal with your disobedient little problem that’s fine, however you will need to be discreet about it, we do not want to draw unwanted attention to ourselves, but I would like those who might have begun to idolise him to know that it is not right.” 

She slipped into her bedroom and sat on her windowsill with the window open, it had begun to rain. The back wall had a Lana’s bed pushed flat up against it, it was a double bed with a grey wooden frame and soft white sheets it had large windows above it that let air and sunlight streak Lana’s face in the morning. Lana spent most of her time sat on the windowsill looking out onto the manor’s gardens. The left wall of the room had a section of it covered in magical photographs that were one first glance filled with Lana’s pureblood dormmates, but if you looked deeper you could see lots of different pictures of her friends spread around, there was now a few with Fred and George. It had a mirror, that leaned up against it and nearly reached the celling, that Lana would sit in front of to do her makeup and would walk around in to check her outfits, it also had a door that lead to her bathroom.

The bathroom was spacious it had a sleek bath with silver taps that released the lavender scented bubbles and rose water that had been in the prefect bathroom. Upon hearing about those taps from Lana, her parents had had it installed on her tub as a Christmas present. The counter with the sink was covered in magical body care products, like perfume that changed with the wearer’s mood and diluted dittany serums to help damaged skin. The left most corner had Lana’s shower, it had been built into the walls when the house had originally been built so the floor dipped slightly, and it had been magically renovated a few years ago with a gorgeous tile design that Lana had picked out herself, it was hidden by plain white curtains. The walls and floor were covered in white tiles and the room was dotted with greenery.

The right wall of Lana’s room was covered in everything she needed for school work, it had a large bookshelf and a desk that was currently covered in different essays Lana needed to complete, everyone had told her that taking seven NEWTs was too much but she didn’t care, the only subjects she had dropped at the start of her first year had been arithmancy, care of magical creatures and history of magic. She had been a bit worried about her grades slipping when she started last year, but her teaches had reassured her at the end of the year that she was still working at an O level in every subject.

The desk was also strewn with studies to become a Healer, anyone she had talked to had always told her that the written work was a killer so she had decided to get ahead by studying off old examination papers she had been given. They were all incredibly difficult but Lana especially hated the sections about extractions from magical plants, Lana hated herbology, she was terrible at it. She only just scraped an O in it and had to work several long nights a week before the exams where she cried far more than she’d like to admit. She also struggled with the sections on human anatomy, where all the different bones were, what they were called, what different variations of the same spell mended what bones.

To top it all off, Lana was so focused on how to care for others she tended to forget that she was a human who needed the exact same care. It was borderline ironic; she would be reading about the importance of diet whilst in recovery whilst her stomach screamed at her because she hadn’t eaten for nine hours straight, or would be running on three hours of sleep for two days, whilst taking notes on healthy sleep cycles.

Her mother would not stop commenting at Lana’s inability to do house hold spells, and had started to make her practise them now that she was allowed to do magic at home. It drove Lana up the walls, she just didn’t have the aptitude for it. Sometimes she would just stare at the dirty oven until her house elf Elle would take pity on her and clean it. 

She positioned herself so that she was sat cross legged looking out the window eating chicken dinner that Elle had made. She had light music playing so that the voices from the meeting were drowned out. She heard the door open and Alex’s footsteps coming into the room, she heard him flop onto her bed and start to pet Nova.

“Tell him one’s from George,” she said as the cat purred softly, “he asked me too in his most recent letter.”

Alex obliged and then came and sat with her at the window, neither of them spoke they sat in silent harmony for several minutes before Alex spoke,

“I know about the dark mark.”

“Oh,” Lana’s tone was empty, she was not surprised.

“But I’m guessing you’re just going to pull out as soon as you can, right? Like Tom.”

Lana decided that despite what Dumbledore had told her, lying to Alex was pointless, if she did, he would figure her out pretty quickly.

“No, Al, I’m not.”

He looked at her with fear in his eyes. “Then what are you doing? You can’t be one of them.”

She put and arm around him and let him rest his head on her shoulder. “Listen let’s not talk about this now, not when anyone could hear us.” She felt him nod on her neck and let him stay there for as long as he needed.

It was at least an hour before they began to see people leaving the grounds and disappearing into the night. They stayed put watching them go and letting the rain soak them, not really caring. They had these moments a lot during the summer, where they didn’t seem to care about what was going on around them. It was difficult, Alex found it a bit easier, his light at the end of the tunnel was that Tom had made it out so he could too.

“Right, let’s go take some warm showers, and get to bed, I’ve got a feeling that we’ll be making a trip to Diagon Alley tomorrow.” Said Lana, as she got out of the window. She grabbed some towels and her pjs and made her way into her bathroom. She heard Alex leave to go to his room.

Lana ran the bath whilst she tied up her hair and took off her clothes, once she was finished the room was filled with that lavender scent. She slipped into the bath and laid down letting the rain pound against her window, she took several deep breaths before fully submerging herself. She closed her eyes and let the water fill her ears. It was peaceful, it was her escape. Things were still so much. She was doing all of this ambitious work knowing that it might come to nothing and that she might never get to live up to her own ambitions. She was trying so hard to protect Alex but knew that reality was beginning to hit him, hard. She rose out of the water and took sever deep breaths again, letting the air fill her lungs. She got out of the bath and put on her night gown, before sitting in front of her bathroom mirror to do her skincare. Once she all finished, she slipped back into her bedroom and under her covers. Her windows were still open and sound was filling the room, she looked into the night sky before closing her eyes and slipping into a deep sleep.

She was woken the next morning by something hitting her on the head and Alex’s voice calling,

“Hogwarts letter.” She sat up and pulled her hair out of the bun it had been in all night; it had gotten wet and was now an extremely frizzy mess. Her letter was a bit heavier that the normal ones, that was promising.

“I open yours you open mine?” Alex had just sat his OWLs and clearly did not want to be the one to open his letter.

“Then why’d you chuck mine at me?” She asked as he threw his letter at her and she threw hers back to him.

“I dunno.” He said in a very stressed tone as Lana opened his letter and he ripped open hers. He scanned the letter with an incredible poker face. She read over his looking at his grades.

“Okay, hit me, start with the worst ones.” He closed his eyes and crossed his fingers.

“Okay, well you got E’s in History of Magic and divination, because why the fuck would you take divination?”

“Wait E’s are my lowest grades?” He asked.

Lana let a large smile on her face. “Yep, you’ve got Os in everything else.”

He let out a large sigh of relief, Lana moved his grades to find his book lists but was met with another piece of paper that she had been expecting but forgotten about. “You’ve been made Quidditch Captain.”

“Really?”

“Yep.” And she threw the badge over to him to prove it. “Alright my turn.”

“You’ve been accepted into Alchemy.” Lana let out a low whistle, Alchemy was an incredibly difficult subject that was only offered to Seventh years who had excelled in both potions and transfiguration. “But because of timetabling and the work that goes into it you’d have to drop astronomy and ancient runes.”

“Oh.” Lana hadn’t been expecting that, she loved both of those subjects, but Alchemy looked amazing for careers because it was so selective about the students it took. “Is that it?”

“Looks like it.”

“Oh, okay.” She let her face fall into disappointment.

“Oh, I’m just kidding, here you go.” He threw a small object at her, she caught it and looked down to see a sleek silver and green badge with the words Head Girl in golden letters. She smiled at it fondly.

“Merlin you are such a nerd.”

“Don’t give me that, you’re just as bad, prefect, excellent grades, quidditch captain. You are going down the exact same path Alexander Rowle, deal with it.”

They got dressed properly and went down to tell their parents about their good news. Maureen promised Lana that they would take a girl’s shopping trip as a reward for her getting Head Girl and Thorfinn told a beaming Alex that he could have the firebolt if he really wanted one.

“Are you sure dad?”

“Course I’m sure Quidditch Captain and nothing lower than an E in your exams that deserves and expensive reward.”

With the promise of a shopping trip for more than just school supplies, Lana and Alex happily went up to their rooms to study. Lana spent most of her time writing her replies to the letters she had read the day before. Telling Fleur that she hoped things went well with her mystery man, and sending Tom some old photo’s she had of him to help spice up his flat. She spent a bit longer on George’s, but finished it eventually. Once she was done and Hera had been sent on her rather long journey, Lana put on her cloak and made her way back down to her parents to go to Diagon Alley.


	30. Hogwarts Bound

It was a brisk morning on September the first. Lana and Alex were in the prefect carriage waiting for everyone else to show up, their parents had dropped them off at quatre past ten as they had to get to work, and they had been waiting ever since. Lana’s trunk had been shoved into a luggage rack and Nova was prowling the carriage smelling everything. A few of the new prefects had turned up, there was a stout Hufflepuff boy and one half of a set of identical twins, so far. Lana had yet to meet the Head Boy and no one seemed to know who he was, the prefects seemed nice so far and just when Lana thought that this wouldn’t be so bad Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson came striding into the carriage, looking incredibly full of themselves.

They were just about to begin gloating, when a tall Ravenclaw boy walked into the carriage. He was sort of muscular and had a kind face, his skin was a deep coffee colour, it was almost like he was an exact mix of Mandy and Sam. He was followed by all of the sixth and seventh year prefects, Lana smiled at the two girls behind him, Diane and Sam looked ecstatic.

“I knew you’d get that.” Sam was pointing at the badge that Lana had pinned to her jumper. The small crowd of prefects all sat down in any spot they could find. The boy who had led them in stood up in the centre of the carriage and Lana followed suit, he was obviously Head Boy.

“Right, so, hello everyone, my name is Felix Cartwright I’m your Head Boy this year.” He then gestured to Lana. “And if you don’t know who this is, what were you doing last year?” Lana snorted and smiled up at him.

“But just in case, my name is Lana Rowle.”

She scanned the room and couldn’t see any new prefects for Gryffindor, Felix had started to explain the rules to the new prefects. “Wait a minute I don’t see any new Gryffindors.” Just as Lana said that, the door flew open and two people came running in. Lana turned and saw Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. Ron? Lana had suspected Harry to be prefect but if Dumbledore had picked Ron, she wasn’t going to argue.

“Right then, sixth and seventh years, who know what they are doing, can go as soon as they’ve checked their patrol time, new fifth years stay sat down.” Felix had a very deep commanding voice, there was an immediate commotion as all of the older prefects checked the rotor to see when they had to patrol the corridors and made their way out of the carriage. Lana then turned to the fifth year prefects.

“Right, you have been made prefects because the staff trust you with responsibility, do not abuse it,” she gave Malfoy a look, he had that kind of attitude. “You are to patrol the train at a specific time, you will come down here and go up and down the train once, checking compartments. Dock points when necessary and only when necessary.”

“You will need to show new first years to your dormitories after the feast, be patient, answer every question they have and don’t get annoyed at them if they get confused by the stairs. That badge is a beacon for first years, they will expect you to be helpful and kind and it is your duty to live up to those expectations.” Felix looked over at all of them as he spoke, they all followed his every word.

The fifth years got up and made their way out of the compartment each of them checking the sheets of names and times as they went. As they left Lana looked and saw a group of seventh years waiting outside, she could see all of her friends and then a group of boys that were probably Felix’s friends. Diane popped her head around the door and smiled at them,

“They’re not going to come back are they, because otherwise we have nowhere to sit.”

“Nah it’s alright come sit.” Said Felix as he found his own seat.

They all made their way into the carriage and sat around tables, Lana could see different assortments of food and card games being spread out. She found herself in between Fred and George, with Mandy, Lucy and Ava opposite her. Sam was talking to one of Felix’s friends who was also a muggleborn, and Diane was helping Felix with a crossword.

“I didn’t expect you to get Head Girl, how am I supposed to back talk teachers now.” Said Lucy in a huff.

“Luce, I’ve literally topped all of my classes since I got here, I tutor other students on the side, I have never been caught doing anything against the rules, I’m a prefect, I got all Os in my OWLs and I just won the Triwizard tournament, what exactly did you expect?” Lana said, laughing as she dealt out exploding snap cards.

“Speaking of OWL results,” Ava said looking up from her copy of the daily prophet, “how were Alex’s?”

“They were really good, Es in divination and history of magic and Os in everything else.”

“I could’ve sworn I saw him carrying a firebolt earlier.” Fred was now dealing out cards as he had lost the previous game rather quickly.

“You saw correctly, my dad got it for him as a reward for getting good grades and being made quidditch captain.”

“Wait he’s been made captain?” Fred looked worried.

“Yep.” Lana had a triumphant grin on her face as she put down the winning card. 

“So, he’s going to start letting girls on the team?” Fred was staring at her like this was a life or death situation. 

“I think so.” Lana was now leaning back with a laugh at his concern at this new situation.

“I better go warn Angelina, she’s the new Gryffindor captain.” And with that Fred was out of his seat and on the move. Lucy followed him because, although she didn’t play for the team, she had always been their number one supporter. Ava slipped out of her seat as Diane had called her over to help with the crossword. Mandy left too, though Lana was pretty sure she didn’t have a reason to leave apart from the fact that she didn’t want to be an awkward third wheel.

Lana shuffled herself so that she was leaning against the window, with her legs over George’s lap. They hadn’t gotten to say a proper hello after six weeks apart, due to their current company so she was trying to be subtle. She looked to the doorway where Fred had just left to talk to Angelina. “So, what’s going on with those two?”

“I honestly don’t know, they just sort of left it alone after the Yule Ball, I don’t think it was ever actually that serious.”

“Oh, that’s fair.”

“Right so, I have found out some very interesting information about you.” He seemed very excited about what he was about to tell her.

“And what would that be?”

“You have no Black blood running through your veins.” This statement left Lana very confused.

“What?”

“You have no blood relationships to the Black Family.”

Lana let out a laugh and pulled the necklace she was wearing out from underneath her jumper. “So this Black Family heirloom that I am currently wearing means nothing then?”

George looked at the necklace with a mix of shock and awe. “Where did you get that?”

“My mum gave it to me, she said that it has been passed down through generations of women in her family.”

“Yeah it has, it’s a historic necklace that goes back as far as the Goblin rebellions.”

“When did you get into all of that history?”

“I met someone over the summer who was like an expert in Black Family history.” Lana could tell that this one of George’s lies smuggled in with some truth. “But anyway, a young Black woman married a widower with two daughters, one of those daughters was your grandma who then had your mum and aunt with your grandpa, but because your grandma had been raised my a member of the Black Family she was put on the Black Family Tree and treated like one of them, the only relations you have to the black family is that your step-great-grandmother was a Black.”

“So, your telling me, that the woman who I was told was my actual great-grandmother, wasn’t actually related to me, and my real great-grandmother died when my Grandma Dorothy was little?” Lana was processing what she had just been told, she had been raised on the mentality that she had blood relations to the Blacks, her mother had always said that she was a Black. But it was very likely that her parents could’ve lied to her about this, it probably wasn’t even considered lying to them, grandma Dot had been raised by this woman that Lana knew was called Harriet like she was her actual daughter. Lana had seen the pictures.

“Fraid so.”

“Damn, so my whole life has been a lie?” Lana had a casual tone; this wasn’t the first lie her parents had told her and it wouldn’t be the last. But still a lie of that magnitude.

“Yup, I just never realised it was actually that deep of a lie. You don’t seem too upset though?”

“My parents have a bit of a track record for this, I’m disappointed in them but not surprised and besides it’s not hard to believe, my mum is the epitome of fake loyalty, the fact that she used that family to get status and then backtracked the second it got a bad name doesn’t surprise me.” She supposed that if a Black had raised her Grandmother, her mother would think of herself as part of the family.

“But on the Brightside that means we’re not related.” That threw Lana completely.

She sat up and turned to him. “What?”

“Turns out my dad is related to the Blacks, so if we had both been related to the Blacks it would’ve been weird.”

“I see, yes that would’ve been weird.” Lana was rather enjoying this little history lesson.

“But back to the necklace, it was passed down through women to protect them, I’m guessing that it was given to your Gran because your great-grandparents didn’t actually have any kids of their own, they just raised your Gran and your great-aunt.”

“Wait what do you mean protect them?” Lana was now looking down at the necklace as she held it.

“Has it ever done anything weird and then right after something dangerous had happened?”

Lana thought back to when the necklace had gotten hot right before Tom threw a pillow at her, and how it had glowed when she wore it in the first task. “Yes, it will heat up on my chest, and sometimes even light up.”

“Exactly it’s been charmed to warn the wearer of danger at any given moment.”

“Oh, so that’s why my mum told me it would be more useful than I might expect, it warned me of danger.” It was like the final piece of the puzzle had finally slipped into place, but to be fair she wasn’t trying hard to figure it out at first. She had been a little scared of it when it had lit up the first time, she thought it might have been cursed, so she didn’t wear it much after that. She had only put it on today because her mother had questioned why she wasn’t wearing ‘such a prestigious gift’ as she put it.

At that moment Fred came back into the compartment he looked to Lana who was now staring down at her necklace thinking over all the information she had gotten over a five-minute period.

“What’s up with you?”

“I’ve just hit her with all the information we found out about over the summer and she’s processing it.” George supplied when Lana didn’t answer.

*

The rest of the train ride was very relaxed and Lana now found herself sat next to Ava at the Slytherin table eating from the feast in front of her. They were all still trying to grasp at what the sorting hat’s song had meant, it had talked about how interhouse relationships had crumbled before and that Hogwarts needed to stick together now that it was under threat. Lana could tell that the Slytherins were having none of it, and she couldn’t blame them. It was all well and good for the headmaster to sit and nod at what the hat was saying, but you can’t deny that if any Slytherin is currently considering joining Voldemort, the mentality that they have had pressed on them by others won’t have helped. The Slytherins won’t agree to this unity because they are being targeted, the hat already put an emphasis on their house are pure-blooded and selective, and they’ve been in the school for about an hour. Lana knew full well that the Slytherins won’t unite with the others unless they start getting some respect and you know what? she didn’t blame them.

The feast had been enjoyable until the new defence against the dark arts teacher had gotten up to say a few words. She had a sickly voice and, in Lana’s opinion, a terrible fashion sense. She had gone on and on about discipline and the importance of prohibiting things that she deemed inappropriate. Lana spent most of the speech thinking about how Fred and George were going to eat her alive, and enjoying the faces of Snape, McGonagall and the like. She wasn’t really aware of what was going on until she sensed movement around her and saw that everyone was getting up and leaving the hall. As she made her way out of the doors, she saw Fred and George and decided she couldn’t wait until the morning to make fun of this new Umbridge woman, so she called after them. They turned around and just as she was about to go catch up with them, she heard that sickly voice again.

“Head Girl, could I have a word?” Lana turned around and saw the toad like woman, she was smiling but Lana could tell that she didn’t mean it. She had already grabbed Felix by the arm and he looked as annoyed as Lana felt. Lana turned back to the twins with an apologetic look before turning back and heading over to where Umbridge was still holding Felix captive.

“Of course, professor.” She said, trying her hardest to keep her tone level.

“Right, I am planning to make big changes around here, and I have the Minister of Magic behind me. I expect you two, the respectable pureblood witch and wizard you are, to be my lieutenants throughout all of this.” Lana and Felix exchanged a look of, absolutely not and she continued. “Especially you Alana-”

“Oh it’s just Lana” Umbridge gave her a mutinous look and her tone changed so much you would’ve thought Lana had stabbed her or something.

“I will call you what I want to call you.” And all of a sudden, her face was back to that forced smile and her tone was once again sweet. “As I was saying, with parents like yours Alana you should be able to understand the importance of order in an establishment like this one.”

The woman was so short that Felix was able to mouth, I already hate her, over her head without her even noticing. Lana let out a small laugh and Umbridge turned on her.

“Something funny?”

“No ma’am.”

“I have clearly got my work cut out for me if these are the students Dumbledore deems worthy of such prestigious positions, you will learn soon enough.” She stopped and looked at them as if they had done something wrong and were now wasting her time. “Well go on then, no need to stand here like pillars.” And she ushered them with her arms.

They both moved rather quickly, neither wanting to linger with the presence that was Umbridge, they walked briskly down one of the many corridors when a voice wolf whistled.

“Well, well, well if it isn’t our future love birds.” It was one of Felix’s friends who Lana didn’t know the name of.

“What?” Felix looked as if he wasn’t enjoying the boy’s company.

“Everyone knows that the Head Boy and Girl always end up with at least feelings for each other.” He said this as if it was obvious. Lana suddenly felt very uncomfortable she didn’t like being talked about that way, especially when she already had a boyfriend.

“Listen man, no one cares about what you think the two of us should end up as, and how many times do I have to tell you, I don’t play for that team.”

“Whatever you say dude.” And with that the guy winked and left. Lana let off a small shudder and looked at him as he left with a face of pure disgust.

“I’m sorry about him, no one in my group actually likes him he just hangs around us because he had no one else to talk to.”

“It’s fine, what did you mean when you said that you don’t play for that team?” Lana had an inkling about what it meant but wanted to be sure.

“Let’s just say I’d be much more interested in your brother than you.” He said with a coy smirk. Lana’s face lit up; she didn’t think he realised how many doors he had opened by telling her that.

“Really? Because I’m sure my brother would be open to that if you know what I mean.” She said mirroring the look he had given her.

It was Felix’s turn to have his face light up. “Wait seriously?”

“Yep.” She turned to the marble staircase that would lead to the Slytherin dorms, “I suggest you and him have a chat and see what happens.” And with that she left.


	31. Always the best at Advice

The next morning Lana was sat at the Slytherin table buttering some toast, she had Lex and Dot either side of her. Snape was passing out timetables, with his usual scowl. Lana looked down at her timetable, she had herbology with the Gryffindors, then double charms, defence against the dark arts, and double alchemy to finish her day off.

“Not bad.” She said taking a bit of her toast.

“Not bad? Not bad? Lana, we have double ancient runes as our last lesson, how am I supposed to stay focused?” Dot was staring down at her timetable in dismay.

“Oh, I’m not taking ancient runes or astronomy anymore.” Lana was now adding some milk to a cup of tea.

“You’ve dropped two subjects?” Lex was now looking up, confused.

“No, I’ve replaced them, I got offered a spot in Babbling’s alchemy class.”

“Really? that’s so cool.”

The rest of their conversation was interrupted by someone tapping Lana on the shoulder. She looked up to see Hermione Granger, she seemed rather flustered. 

“Everything alright Granger?” she said after taking a sip of her tea.

“It’s Fred and George, they are advertising for testers in the Gryffindor common room and they won’t listen to me when I tell that that it’s not safe.”

Lana let out a sigh and got up from her seat, as much as she had openly supported the idea of a joke shop, she had to admit, they were going a bit too far. She made her way over to where the twins were sitting and leaned over them.

“Good morning.” She said, in a somewhat exasperated tone.

“I can’t believe you got Lana involved in this.”

“Well you weren’t helping me Ron, I needed some backup.”

George looked up at Lana “What’s she told you?”

Lana sat down next to him and took an untouched muffin off his plate. “You can’t advertise for testers that openly, I’m fine with you guys doing it on yourselves and maybe a couple of willing people, but no big shows or flashy posters alright?”

“Fine.” They said in unison.

“Thank you.” Lana was about to get up and go get her bag but Hermione still did not look happy.

“You can’t just leave it like that, they shouldn’t be doing any of this.”

Lana let out a sigh. “Hermione, the only person who might be able to put a stop to this, is Mrs Weasley, and considering there is no chance of us getting her here, my methods are the best you’ve got.” Fred and George were looking very smug, Lana ran her fingers through her hair as she had straightened it that morning. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and talk to Sinistra about having some theory lessons at weekends, I’d still quite like to take the astronomy NEWT.”

“Merlin, why are you so focused on school work?” Said George, he and Fred were also getting up from their seats.

Lana smiled at him and began to fix his tie as it was slightly messy. “Well, someone has to be in this relationship, see you in Herbology.” And with that she turned grabbed her bag from the Slytherin table and then started to make her way to the astronomy classroom.

Astronomy had two class spaces, there was the tower where students would examine the stars and constellations, and the classroom where they would then write up their findings in normal timetabled lessons. Lana and professor Sinistra had always gotten on very well, they had a game in the summer months over who could spot the star Ascella first as it was Lana’s middle name, Lana knew far too much about the Sagittarius constellation because of this. She and Alex both had star middle names, his middle name was Arcturus. It was common for pureblood families to give names after stars, an old friend of Lana’s parents had told her about the night after she was born, they found her parents hunched over a book full of star names trying to find one that fit. And although they may have some weird translations in other languages, she had to admit that, Alana Ascella and Alexander Arcturus, had a good ring to it.

When she reached the open doorway, she found professor Sinistra placing ‘An Introduction to Astronomy’ on each of the desks. Lana knocked on the hard, wooden door frame. Professor Sinistra looked up at her kindly. She was a short woman with dark skin and natural hair that tended to be pulled back into gorgeous braids. She had a warm voice and was one of Lana’s favourite teachers.

“What can I do for you Lana? Now that you have decided to drop my subject.” Lana began to stumble over some sort of excuse and professor Sinistra let out a laugh. “I was joking, congratulations on getting into alchemy, that’s a very difficult feet, it’s just a shame that my subject had to go.”

“Well that’s what I’m here about, I was wondering if I could still take the course, because I can still attend the observation lessons, and I would only need about two hours a week to complete the written work.” She said this rather feebly, she was trying to not bring up the idea of Sinistra taking time out of her life to help an overachiever.

“I was expecting this, and I am open to having a hour’s session with you on Mondays and Fridays, but you have to understand that it will be difficult, the only reason I’m offering you this, is because you are one of my best students.”

Lana let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, professor.”

“You might have to share me as well, Felix Cartwright is in the exact same position, but I suppose you and him have already been acquainted.” She nodded her head in the direction of Lana’s Head Girl badge.

“Oh, yes, we have.”

“Right, I have now got to deal with a large group of excitable first years, I’ll see you around Lana.”

“See you around.” And with that the bell went and Lana made her way over to the green houses for her first lesson of the year.

Herbology was alright, they were just going over the basics so that they could start working on the really interesting stuff next lesson. It was five minutes until the end of the lesson and they had all been practising correct cleaning techniques. Lana was in between Kat and Ava on one side of the greenhouse and the twins were on the other side. It had been so hectic, as they were cleaning rather active plants, that Lana hadn’t even had a chance to look at them, let alone hold a conversation with them. The greenhouse had been completely void of human voices until Professor Sprout had began to speak.

“Right chaps,” they all looked over to her, “Gryffindors keep going until the bell so that you can come straight back to this after break, Slytherins pack up now and I’ll see you in our next lesson.”

Lana had to hold in her sigh of relief as she packed up her tools and plant. It had been rather overwhelming and she was quite looking forward to a quiet charms lesson.

Lana had found herself sat next to Felix during charms as Diane had opted to sit next to Ava. They were practising summoning charms, but silently. Both Lana and Felix were already rather good at this, so they spent most of the lesson chatting and summoning things out of each other’s hands when Flitwick looked at them.

“I seriously would’ve never guessed Alex to be gay, but then again I have never spoken to him.”

“Yeah, well, he keeps it rather quiet, I’m fairly sure it’s just me and his best friend who know, but he always told me that if I met someone cute who was open about it, I was allowed to tell them.” Lana was fiddling with one of her many earrings.

“Well I’m glad you did, I spoke to him at breakfast, mainly about astronomy, are you doing extra lessons with Sinistra now?” He was speaking rather quickly.

“Yeah I am.”

“Cool, well anyway we then started talking about quidditch and how his try-outs are coming up, he seems stressed.”

“That’ll be Malfoy.” Said Lana in an exasperated tone. “He’s throwing fits about girls trying out, I reckon he’s scared of a girl doing his job better than him.” She summoned the ink pot he was holding and gave professor Flitwick a smile. “But Alex can’t replace him or Lucius Malfoy will come down here with his money and generous donations, and demand that Alex gets kicked off the team and Draco takes his place as captain.”

“That’s definitely a sticky situation.” He paused for a minute before speaking again. “Are trying out? I’ve seen you fly, you’d be really good.”

“What? No, of course not, quidditch is Alex’s thing.”

“You guys could make it a sibling thing, like the Weasley twins.” He then turned to her with a knowing look. “Who you seem to be rather close with.

Lan coughed and looked him with a face of pure shock. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t.” he was dripping in sarcasm. “I mean you’re ridiculously close with the quiet one.”

“There’s a quiet one?”

“Well no, but there’s one that always starts the conversation, and then there’s one that tends to join in a bit later, and you seem very close to the later.” Lana thought for a moment but Felix was right, that was how it went in group conversations. “That’s how I tell them apart.”

Lana leaned in. “Well my method is a bit simpler.”

Felix leaned in too. “And what would that be?”

“One kisses me, one doesn’t.”

“I knew it!” he had become rather loud in his excitement.

“Keep your voice down.” Lana looked around the room to see if anyone had heard them, no one had, they were all busy summoning things.

Lana and Felix were making their way down to lunch, the rest of the class had already gone about ten minutes ago but Felix wanted to ask Flitwick something at the end and Lana wasn’t going to leave him to walk by himself.

“So, have you ever y’know?” Felix was looking at her like he didn’t know how to ask Lana what he wanted to ask her. She held her breath, expecting a very uncomfortable question. “Gone to kiss the wrong one?”

Lana let out a sigh of relief and then began to laugh. “No,” she said through fits of giggles, “Of course not!”

“I don’t know!” He held his hand up in defence. “I’ve never dated an identical twin before.”

“I can usually tell, and if I can’t I check.” She was about to say something else, but before she could, she collided with a figure that was a bit smaller than her. She deeply regretted the fact that she had decided to carry her charms book and not put it straight in her bag, because upon the collision she dropped it and a stream of small notes she had scattered themselves on the floor.

“Sorry, oh for Merlin’s sake.” She looked at the mess that the notes had made and bent down to pick them up. Felix moved to help but Lana brushed him off. “No, it’s alright you go to lunch and I’ll catch you up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

With that Felix left. The person she had crashed into had stayed to help her she looked up and saw that it was…

“Oh, hiya Harry, I didn’t even realise it was you.” She said sweetly.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry about that, but how do you already have so many notes? It’s the first day.”

“Oh, these are all my old notes from last year, I just keep them in my current book, which probably isn’t the best decision but-” she looked up and saw that Harry looked incredibly stressed. “Hey, is everything alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just stuff.” He tried to fake an air of calmness.

Lana saw right through it. “What stuff?”

“Well it’s just,” he took a deep breath and then began to speak very quickly, “I keep having people that look at me like I’m completely insane, Snape is making potions ridiculously hard and to top it off Ron and Hermione won’t stop bickering.”

“Oh,” Lana picked up one of the last notes and looked him in the eyes, “well, anyone who thinks you’re mad is just close minded and not your problem.”

“Yeah, but you’re not having any problems.”

“Well, I’m not shouting by beliefs from the rooftops, and I’ve had to answer a lot of questions, I nearly gave that little Irish friend of yours a bloody nose at break, he wouldn’t stop asking me what happened.”

“He’s not my friend, well not anymore.” Harry looked down.

“Right, well who cares what they think? You know you’re right, I know you’re right, and Dumbledore knows you’re right. Everyone that matters believes you.”

“I guess.”

“And is Snape doing his usual thing of writing the instructions really small on the blackboard so the students that are scared of him and sit at the back of the classroom can’t see them by the end of the lesson?”

“Yes.” Harry looked excited at the fact that someone else had this problem.

“What you need to do is, write the instructions in your own notepad at the start of the lesson so that you can refer to that when the room gets all steamy.” Lana had been doing this since her second ever term at Hogwarts and her potions had been immaculate ever since. “Just don’t change the wording, he may try and catch you out with the size, but he had yet to write a set of instructions that aren’t perfect, at least not for me anyways.”

“Yeah, alright, thanks.” Harry looked to be in a considerably better mood.

“No problem, and as for Ron Hermione, bickering is always the first step, they’ll get over that soon and move onto the more entertaining stages.” Lana knew full well what all the bickering meant.

“Stages of what?” Harry looked completely perplexed.

“Oh, never mind.” Lana did not have the time to explain to him that his two best friends both had crushes on each other, her stomach was grumbling at her, demanding food. She straightened up. “I need some lunch, I’ll see you around Potter.”

When Lana slipped into a seat at the lunch table, everyone else had already finished their food.

“Where have you been?” Lucy asked, watching Lana take a large slice of Shepard’s pie from the centre of the table.

“I quite literally bumped into Potter on my way here, all my charms notes went flying.”

“Ah I see.”

Once Lana had finished her food, she slipped her hand into George’s and tried to subtly rest her head on him. She was already so tired, but herbology first thing often did that to her. George seemed to get the message and stayed rather still as they spoke about Umbridge. The Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, who had just had her, were warning the Slytherins and Ravenclaws, who had her next.

“She seems to think that there is nothing for us to be defending ourselves against,” Fred was saying whilst fiddling with a fork, “it’s almost as if she thinks that if we learn too much, we’ll get funny ideas.”

“I could see that coming a mile off,” Lana said as she flicked through the book that had been set for defence against the dark arts, “she called me and Felix lieutenants in her war against disorder.”

With that everyone began to laugh at the idea of Lana being Umbridge’s right hand man. Then Fred and George go up from their seats.

“Now if you excuse us, we have three free periods to experiment with.”

“Wait what happened to transfiguration? that’s what I’ve got next.” Lucy was looking at them confused. The group were all making their way out of the hall.

“Oh, McGonagall gave up on us.”

“What do you mean, ‘gave up on you’?” Lana asked.

“Well we didn’t actually pass the transfiguration OWL, but she insisted that we kept taking it, in the hopes we’d buck up our ideas and start working, so when that didn’t happen last year, she told us not to bother this year.” They did not seem too upset about this, as far as they were concerned it was more time to test products.

“What OWLs did you pass?” Diane asked.

“Potions, herbology and charms.” George said putting an arm around Lana’s shoulder as the group had made out into the empty entrance hall.

“But McGee, as we like to call her, made us keep defence against the dark arts and transfiguration insisting that we had talent we just weren’t using it.” Fred continued.

“And to be fair we are using it, just not to pass our NEWTs.” George said. He rested his chin on Lana’s head. “Well we best be off, I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Okay.” Lana said quietly as he let go of her and he and Fred disappeared off to the Gryffindor common room.

“What confused me,” Mandy said watching them go, “was how they got an O in potions.”

“What d’you mean?” Sam asked.

“Well you had to get an O to keep doing it, and they are still taking potions lessons. I didn’t get an O.” Mandy supplied.

“I’ve actually looked into this,” Lana piped up, she had wrapped her arm around herself where George’s arm had been. “All four potions that came up in the exams are ones they would have had to study loads to make joke shop products, so naturally they aced the exams.” Lana had done all this when she first started to tutoring them, they had talent, it’s just it only flourished in things they enjoyed. 

Defence against the dark arts, was a nightmare. She had gone on and on about their NEWT exams, and then proceeded to have them just write notes about when it was suitable to use defensive magic. It was probably the most boring lesson Lana had ever sat, and she took five years of history of magic. Luckily for them it was only a forty-five-minute lesson so they didn’t suffer for too long. And before she knew it Lana was sat in her last subject of the day Alchemy.

The Alchemy class was very small, there were only five students. Lana and Felix were two of them, there was another Slytherin student, who Lana didn’t know the name of. He was one of that small group of purebloods who hung around with Malfoy so naturally Lana hadn’t spoken to him much. There was another Ravenclaw boy who seemed to be one of Felix’s actual friends and then a girl from Hufflepuff that Lana recognised, she had seen her chatting with Mandy and Sam a few times. The class room was also very small, it had two very large bookshelves, on each wall, that were covered in lots of different old books. There was a display of lots of different metals on the back wall that overlooked the teacher’s desk. Lana was surprised to see an old warlock who she had never met before, she had been expecting professor Babbling. He looked up and smiled at them warmly.

“Hello everyone, my name is Professor Philpot, I’ll be taking your Alchemy class this year.” They all look around, giving each other confused looks. This was not what they had expected at all. “You all seem rather confused and reluctant. Is everything alright?”

When no one spoke, Lana sat up a bit and said, rather feebly, “sorry sir it’s just that we were expecting Professor Babbling, she normally teaches this subject.”

“Ah yes, of course.” He said getting up from his desk. “I should’ve explained, some of you had to drop ancient runes for this subject, and as you know she teaches that subject as well. You see Dumbledore could not find a way to have all of you take the subject and Professor Babbling teach it.”

Lana had to take a minute to think over her own stupidity, Dot had literally talked about having ancient runes at the same time as alchemy and Lana had not considered how Babbling would teach both subjects at the same time. It seemed so obvious now.

“I have been retired for many years, but I always promised Dumbledore that if there was enough students wanting to take the subject and no one else to teach it that I’d fill in for the year, so here we are.” Professor Philpot had the air of a doddery old man that was way past his prime, but he had a kind face and friendly demeanour.

“Right, so I’m guessing you will not know much about the ancient art of Alchemy, so how about I read you the introduction chapter from the textbook and you feel free to ask any question that pops in your head as we go?” The five of them nodded and he began to read.

There were so many different questions, that each took about fifteen minutes to answer, so they only just managed to finish the chapter before the bell went. As the students were getting out of their seats professor Philpot called out.

“Homework is to make a profile essay on the metal, iron, what are its properties? What are its melting and boiling points? And any other useful information, ready for our next lesson on Wednesday.” And with that the class filed out of the room and to the Great Hall for dinner.


	32. The little details you notice

The next few weeks really showed how much pressure seventh year was going to be. It also showed Lana how the people around her dealt with pressure. She only had two weeks to go off but she was already noticing little details about her friends. For instance, when she was stressing out over a particularly difficult potions essay the second night back, Diane stared to bite the insides of her cheeks, and now Lana couldn’t stop noticing it. She also noticed that whenever Lucy would start pulling at sections of her hair to watch it bounce back into a curl a request for help would follow it. Sam had a tendency to forget to eat because she was so focused on getting her school work done, Lana had taken to grabbing a plate of food for her and sneaking it up to the library. She also knew that if no one could find Mandy anywhere, she was probably with the Thestrals, whenever this happened Lana would send Felix down to talk to Mandy as he was the only other person who could see the Thestrals. Mandy’s aunt had died of cancer in front of her and Felix’s granddad had died in front of him, they seemed to bond over being the only ones who could see the creatures, Lana wasn’t one to judge, she had been shielded from that sort of thing her entire life.

However, she had just turned eighteen and Lana could feel the bubble, she had made herself start to weaken. She had a quiet birthday, everyone was rather busy with school, but she had enjoyed all the presents and the fire whiskey. She and George had even managed an hour in the kitchens undisturbed, they didn’t do much they just ate some cake that the houses elves had made and enjoyed each other’s company. He had gotten her a new book for her to try out and she was already finding it quite interesting.

Her parents saw her birthday as a coming of age more than a celebration and every letter they sent seemed to have more responsibility stitched to it. She was now being asked to keep tabs on people whose parents had joined the order. She wasn’t sure about it, but she remembered how Dumbledore had told her to do as they say. She wasn’t giving them much, mainly because she wasn’t being told much herself.

She was noticing that people were beginning to not trust her already, and she hadn’t even done anything yet. There had been actual conversations that had stopped when she came into the room under the insistence that the information could be tortured out of her. Lana wanted to believe them, she really did, but it was difficult, especially when pretty much the rest of Slytherin house were starting to get cut off. The amount on first years Lana had to console in the common room because no one wanted to be friends with the evil house. Not when he might be back.

Lana could tell that no one seemed to notice that by excluding these kids now, they were only setting out paths for future death eaters. ‘We aren’t what people make of us’ she would tell them. 

It was Sunday morning, and Lana was making her way down to breakfast. She was in her brother’s quidditch jumper and a pair of joggers. She slipped into her seat at the Slytherin table, and scanned it to try and find Ava, who wasn’t in the dorms, but couldn’t see her. Which was odd it wasn’t like Ava to be off somewhere. Then Lana had a thought, Ava might not be in the school at all. Her gran hadn’t been doing well at all recently, Ava was telling her that it could be any day, she was that ill. Lana just hoped that Tom got to say goodbye.

Lana saw her copy of the Daily Prophet curled up next to her plate but left it until she had eaten something. She buttered herself a croissant and made a cup of tea. Her hair was still wet from the shower and her face felt fresh. She was in a good mood. 

It was practically deserted, but everyone who was in the hall were all doing the same thing. They were all looking down at the front page of the Daily Prophet with looks of shock and horror. Lana unwrapped the copy that was in front of her and felt the teacup she was holding slip out of her hand and smash on the floor. She didn’t care. She was too focused on the headline of the paper and the smiling faces below it.

Auror in Training and Girlfriend Found Dead in London Apartment  
After Brutal Werewolf Attack.

Lana stared down at the handsome face of Thomas Stevens. His girlfriend, Noemie, was under his arm they both had a light in their eyes. A light Lana would never see again. She averted her gaze from their faces as she felt to sick to look at them. However, she didn’t find comfort, all she found was another large photo, this time it was of the apartment. The sofa had been torn to pieces and there were claw marks on the wall, but all Lana could seem to look at was a section of the wall that had been covered with the photo’s she had sent them. Except you couldn’t see the occupants of the pictures that well, they had all been covered with splatters of blood. Lana began to read the news article only half paying attention to what it said.

As most will know this Saturday night was the full moon. Normally the halfbreeds that are affected by this hide themselves away. But not this time. Auror in training Thomas Stevens and his girlfriend were just enjoying a quiet night in when tragedy struck. A werewolf, who is yet to be identified, attacked them in their home. Due to the violent nature of the beast, the pair were killed instantly. The Ministry of Magic are calling from stricter regulations through out the country and are having conversations with the French government as well, as one of the victims of this atrocity was a French student by the name of Neomie Bisset. We sincerely hope that this story shows anyone who had their doubts about the vile creatures, that they are not to be trusted.

Lana couldn’t read anymore of it, she felt her throat closing up on her, she couldn’t breathe. She got out from her seat, all ideas of food and tea forgotten, and made her way through the entrance hall and down the grounds of the castle.

She wasn’t even that sure of where she was going. All she knew was that she was moving quickly letting the small drizzle of rain brush against her face. She didn’t know why she had gone outside. Air. She needed air. But no air was making it to her lungs, or at least that was what it felt like. Air was still getting to her lungs, she wasn’t dead. He was though.

No.

No. He couldn’t be dead. But the newspaper. To hell with the new paper. It didn’t know what it was talking about. Thomas Stevens wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. Lana’s head was swirling. She couldn’t see what was going on around her. she could think about anything except the image of blood splattered against the photographs. His blood.

She was dizzy. She was really dizzy. Like dizzy, dizzy. She wasn’t sure where she was. A flash of orange. Was that a pumpkin? Why would it be a pumpkin? She felt herself fall to the ground and looked up. She was in the pumpkin patch of Hagrid’s hut. The windows where covered up. No one was home. But she knew that, he hadn’t been seen at all so far. Mandy missed him. Mandy. Her friends. They might be looking for her. They probably wanted to talk her. But she didn’t want to talk to them. She didn’t even want look at them. She didn’t want to do… anything.

She just sat hidden by the abnormally large pumpkins. Tears were streaming down her face. It wasn’t pretty crying. It was ugly, screaming, snotty crying. She couldn’t keep it in. She couldn’t take a deep breath. She only managed short hitched breaths. Tom wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be. She kept going over this. It hurt. God it hurt so much. Why wouldn’t it stop hurting? She continued to cry uncontrollably.

One of the worst parts was the fact that the cowards at the ministry were using this as propaganda against werewolves, instead of what it actually was. Lord Voldemort’s brutal way of snuffing out those who openly defied him. Lana thought of Lupin. 

Tom wouldn’t want this.

Tom would want people to know why he died. And what he died fighting for. Because he was dead. Lana was going to have to accept that.

She thought back to something she had heard over the summer. “If you want to deal with your disobedient little problem.” Tom was the problem. He had been dealt with.

With that a terrible thought entered Lana’s mind. If that’s what they did to Tom for just slipping away. What where they going to do to her if they ever found out that she was a spy? Was this as safe as she had thought it would be? Was she already in danger?

What would this do to all the younger Slytherins who were in the exact same position? This was going to be a major setback. They were going to be too scared to do anything now. Lana thought about Alex. How was he going to take this? Was she already taking it? Tom’s freedom had been his only hope.

Lana was sure how long she sat there. She had stopped crying. Although she was pretty sure that it was just because she was dehydrated. Her stomach was rumbling and she was exhausted and shaking. She was honestly scared to move for fear of falling the second she stood up.

The drizzle of rain had escalated slightly. Lana could hear raindrops bouncing of the skin of the pumpkins. There was a soft breeze in the air. The smell of fresh rain water filled Lana’s senses. She was finally taking deep breaths again. It must’ve been at least an hour since she had gone outside. She felt someone moving behind her and then something soft and warm being draped over her shoulders. She then felt someone sit down next to her. They smelt like cologne and burning. She looked up to see George looking down at her concern etched into his face.

He didn’t say anything, and neither did she. She just rested her head on his shoulder and he put an arm around her. Lana finally let herself relax. She had been so tense all morning, her head was starting to ache. It was several minutes before he spoke, but when he did his voice was soft and quiet, Lana was amazed he could actually do that. He was usually so loud.

“I’m sorry, I know how close you guys were.”

Lana didn’t have the strength to speak so she just nodded onto his shoulder.

“We’ve been looking for you for ages, I was worried that you might’ve gone into the forbidden forest. I saw Mandy and Sam go talk to Alex.”

“How’s he taking it?” Lana’s voice came out incredibly hoarse and raspy, the aftermath of crying for an hour straight was getting to her.

“Not well, he looked a mess. But he seemed to calm down a bit when that head boy bloke, Felix? Turned up.”

Lana let out a small hum to show that she had heard him. He continued.

“We can’t find Ava anywhere, we think that she’s been taken out of school for a bit.”

“Yeah.”

“Listen we should really get you inside, you’re freezing.”

Lana once again didn’t say anything but et him help her get up and they walked quietly back to the castle. She took the blanket off her shoulder and ducked under George’s arm. She didn’t want the others to see how messed up she had been. It was only when he forcefully stuffed his hand into hers that she accepted the small bit of comfort. When they made it to the entrance hall, they were met with all of her friends and professor McGonagall. Lucy broke from the group and pulled Lana into a tight hug.

“Where have you been? Are you okay? Why are you so wet?”

Lana heard George speak. “Let her breathe Luce.”

Lana felt a spindly but kind hand place itself on her shoulder and looked up to see McGonagall smiling at her. She looked thoroughly upset and Lana realised why, Tom excelled at charms.

“Come on miss Rowle, to the hospital wing Poppy will through a fit if she finds out that you were out in the cold for that long.” She put a gentle arm around Lana’s shoulders. “Miss Smith if you could go and find one of Lana’s dormmates so that you can retrieve some fresh clothes for her.”

Lana looked down at her jumper as Lucy made her way into the hall followed by Sam ad Diane, she remembered who the jumper belonged to. “Professor where’s Alex, is he alright.”

“The last I saw him he was with the head boy in the library.”

Madame Pomfrey spent about fifteen minutes fussing over Lana, she warmed her up and gave her a potion for Lana’s head that now felt like her brain was pounding out of her skull. Once she was all dried off and in a new set of clothes. She made her way up the library hand in hand with George. He had gone to get something to eat from the kitchens whilst Lana was being checked over because it turns out the second he got to the hall that morning he was met with the news article and the fact that Lana was missing, and gone looking for her.

Once they had reached the library, they found Alex and Felix in the armchairs reading quietly. Nova was curled up on Alex’s lap and jumped off him and made his was over Lana the second he saw her. She picked him up and looked at Alex, his eyes were puffy and he looked tired, but he smiled at her.

“I sorta stole him, sorry.”

“It’s alright.” Lana said quietly as she made her way over to him and kissed his blonde hair like their mum used to.

“Have you heard anything from Ava?”

“No, but I don’t expect to for a good few days.” She slipped her arms over his shoulder and rested her chin on his head.

The four of them stayed in the library for a while. None of them said much, they just enjoyed each other’s company. To try and keep some form of normality Alex began to talk about Quidditch.

“I’ve had one of my chasers pull out of the team already because of other commitments, and I do not want to go through the hassle of try-outs again, so would you mind just filling in for your last year?”

Lana and Alex ended up arguing about this for a while, Alex trying to convince her and Lana saying she already had too much on. And, for a shining moment Lana forgot about her morning. She wasn’t okay and wouldn’t be for a little while, but she had the right people around her. For now.


	33. Sirius Black

It had been about two weeks since the news of Tom’s death had made the front page, life was moving on but slowly. Ava had made a quiet return to Hogwarts, she had insisted that she was fine and that she didn’t want to talk about it, but Lana could often hear her crying in her bed at night. Lana was still waiting for him to come round a corner in the corridors and smile at her, or for a letter from him to arrive in the post.

She had other things to distract her, her school work was still piling on and she had given in to Alex’s many pleas and taken the vacant chaser position on the Quidditch team. Alex was training his team to perfection, Lex had finally gotten her wish and was now playing as a beater with a sixth year boy that had only been addressed as McCoy, they seemed to get on rather well and worked well together. Lex had immaculate aim and McCoy had one of the strongest swings Lana had ever seen. Malfoy had tried his hardest to get his two goons to be beaters but Alex was having none of it.

Malfoy was a very good seeker but he just didn’t hold a candle to Potter, Alex had put a lot of emphasis on the chasers. His hopes were to have a situation like the world cup, where the Irish team had won on goals alone. Lana knew that the Gryffindor keeper was Ron and that he wasn’t the best they had seen, apparently he was very good until people started watching him, then he lost his nerve. Their keeper was a lean fourth year who liked to be called by his surname Garza, he was incredibly fast and was able to do moves that could cover two hoops at once.

Although she would never admit it to Alex, joining the quidditch team had definitely been a good thing for Lana. It was a nice space for her to forget about all of her other responsibilities. And there was a lot to forget. Umbridge had been made high inquisitor and was treating Lana and Felix with more respect than some of the actual teachers. She had gone into several different lessons to inspect the teachers and had actually asked Lana to take notes for her. Anytime this had happened Lana had always given whoever was teaching an apologetic look and tried to make them look as good as possible. So, it was natural that Lana had a lot to vent on the Quidditch Pitch, this had resulted on her scoring some very impressive (and quite violent) goals.

The first Hogsmeade trip had been and gone, Fred and George had said that they had something on that day and the rest of her group seemed to want to tag along apart from Ava who was being reluctantly forced to go. Lana would’ve gone too but she had homework to catch up on and could sense that there was an attitude within the group that they didn’t want her to come. Lana let it slide insisting to herself that it was nothing for her to worry about. However, she did find herself putting books back on the shelves with a bit too much force. She just couldn’t understand why they were hiding things from her, they had never been like this before. She didn’t mind too much, if this was how they were going to be for her last year at Hogwarts it was going to make cutting them off rather easy.

It was a chilly October evening and the Slytherin quidditch team were having a rather wet practise due to all the rain. Alex was insisting that they were making up for lost time as the team had been disbanded for a short while under an educational decree Umbridge had made. It had been a really good practice despite the rain. The only thing that could’ve been called a setback was that Alex had received a very well hit Bludger to the face and was now dealing with a bleeding lip and Lex apologising profusely. (Shut up, Longreen, I’m fine. That was an excellent hit, this stuff happens). Once the practice was over the team went to dry off and get changed. Lana slipped her new Quidditch jumper on and a pair of leggings. It was a nice feeling to have her own jumper, it was also a good thing for Alex who was now no longer having his stolen from him.

The team filed their way into the great hall and dispersed. Lana had to stop at the doors as she was met with a rather small second year who was holding a scroll that was wrapped up in a velvet ribbon. Lana took the scroll and thanked the second year politely. She opened it as she made her way to where her friends where sitting. It read,

‘Dear Miss Rowle,

I would greatly appreciate a conversation with you at your earliest convenience. There is much for us to discuss.

Yours Sincerely

Albus Dumbledore

p.s I enjoy bubble gum.’

Lana read the note over, mainly focusing on the p.s, what did that matter? She decided to talk to Dumbledore after she had eaten something. She was still holding the scroll as she sat down as she had no pockets. The group were having a hushed conversation that stopped the second she sat down. Lana looked between all of them as they stared at her like deer caught in headlights.

“What?” She asked in a casual tone.

They all looked each other as if they were asking whether or not it was a good idea to tell her what they were talking about.

“What?” she persisted with a bit of a harsher tone.

Lucy looked to Harry, Ron and Hermione; they all shook their heads. Lucy turned back to Lana with an apologetic look. Lana did one last sweep of the group, they all looked like they wanted to say something but couldn’t. Lana was beyond frustrated; how could they keep doing this?

“You know what?” she said getting up from her seat angrily. “Fine. Don’t tell me, see if I care.”

She made her way out of the hall and up towards the Dumbledore’s office, fuming all the way. They were keeping something from her, and she had no idea why. It wasn’t like they weren’t telling people with Death Eater parents or else Ava wouldn’t be there, so what was it.

She reached Dumbledore’s office and was met with the Gargoyle. She then realised that she had not been given the password d to get into the office. She felt the frustration bubble up inside her again and then remembered the last line of the scroll that she had been sent.

“Bubble gum.”

The statue moved to reveal the spiral staircase than Lana had been up only twice before. She stood on the bottom step and it began to move upwards in a spiral motion. She reached the door and heard voices coming from inside the room. There must’ve been several different people in there already. But, when Lana knocked on the door and it swung open, the room appeared to be empty. Dumbledore was sat in front of his desk looking over some papers. The voices had been all the portraits were on the walls around him. He didn’t say anything, but gestured to a very comfortable looking arm chair. Lana sat down, she didn’t say anything, wanting to let him speak first. He didn’t speak either, he merely surveyed his papers like she wasn’t there. After about two minutes of awkward silence he finally spoke.

“I am surprised that you are so calm miss Rowle, it is refreshing.” Lana was taken aback what had expected for her to come in here and gush out her emotions. “Now, we have much to discuss, the death of Mr Stevens, though tragic, has shown us that Voldemort is very willing to deal with those who get in his way, we will need to prepare you for what comes next. Might I suggest occlumency, to ensure that he cannot infiltrate your mind.”

Lana just stared at him, he was acting as if Tom’s death wasn’t still fresh to her. He was acting like she should be over it. He was acting like it didn’t matter. She felt the unchecked rage fill her again.

“I’m sorry sir this is all a bit sudden.” She said trying and failing to keep her tone level.

“How so? You have had several weeks, this is the reality of war miss Rowle, people die.”

Lana felt as that white hot rage filled her again, she stared at the old man in front of her with pure hatred. She had bottled up too many emotions for too long.

“But he didn’t have to though.” She said quietly.

“Excuse me?” Dumbledore didn’t sound angry, on the contrary he sounded incredibly calm.

“HE DIDN’T HAVE TO THOUGH.” Lana was shouting, she was so loud that several of the portraits, that had gone back to snoozing the second she came into the room, jumped in their seats and began to look at her. “TOM, HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE UNDER YOUR PROCTECTION HE WAS IN THAT STUPID ORDER YOU SET UP.” Lana’s throat began to hurt. She was so angry that she didn’t even realise that she was now out from her seat and was holding one of the ancient books that sat on a golden bookshelf. She threw it into the fire. Several different portraits let out cries of shock. She didn’t care. There was surge of satisfaction and calm in Lana’s veins that she had only felt a taster of on the quidditch pitch. She picked up another book and lobbed it deeper into the office. It nearly hit Dumbledore in the face and yet he didn’t flinch.

“Two weeks,” Lana’s voice was quieter, but still filled with the same levels of rage. “Two weeks I have been left with my own inner turmoil and no one will tell me anything!” She threw another book but held on to some of the pages so that they stayed in her hands and ripped from the spine as the book went flying and crashed into one of the portraits as it fell the rest of its pages went flying and covered the office floor.

She kept a tight grip on the bundle of pages that were still in her hands. “I CAN’T DO THIS, NOT ANYMORE, NOT AFTER THAT” She took a deep breath. “I want this to stop.” She dropped the pages to the floor and saw cuts in her palm where her nails had dug in. “I want out.”

“Well now, you can’t go giving up so easily.” Dumbledore’s tone had a lightness to it that made Lana want to jump over the desk to rip his stupid glasses from his face and break them.

“YES - I - CAN.” Lana’s throat felt like it was going rip she was shouting so much. “IF THAT’S WHAT THEY DO TO SOMEONE WHO LEFT QUIELTY WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO TO ME?”

“We will learn from this, and ensure that you are safe.” Dumbledore once again gestured to the seat. Lana stepped over some book pages and sat down. Dumbledore examined her for a moment and then held one of his hands out. “Please may I look at it?” Lana let her left arm drop onto his desk and Dumbledore pushed up her sleeve to examine the mark on her arm. It had gotten darker since she last saw it. She had avoided looking at it by always wearing long-sleeved tops even if she was alone, and averting her gaze when it had to be in the open. She loathed the sight of it.

Dumbledore began to speak as he looked at the mark over his halfmoon spectacles. “I am sorry about how I acted when they first arrived.” His tone was still casual. “I needed to see how you were handling these recent events and I knew that you would not show your true colours unless you were prompted.”

“That was a really messed up way of doing it.” Lana sniffed, letting herself calm down a bit.

A new voice spoke it was cool and offhanded. “Well we know what you lot are like, you like to feel all misunderstood.” It was the man in the portrait that one of the books had hit.

“That’s enough Phineas.” Dumbledore said as he let go of Lana’s arm.

“Who is this.” Phineas asked. As Lana pulled her sleeve back over the mark. 

“This is Lana Rowle, I’m fairly sure she is on your family tree.” Dumbledore said calmly.

“Ah yes, one in the line of imposters, you won’t believe what the house elf says about your lot.” Lana realised that this man must be a member of the Black family. She became aware of the necklace that was sitting on her chest. She pulled the necklace out from under her jumper and held it for the man to see.

“I am not an imposter.” Lana could see the mans eyes widen.

“Where did you get that?”

“No matter Phineas, what matters now is that Lana is safe, I think it best that she has a safe house to apparate to if she ever finds herself in trouble.” Dumbledore turned to Lana. “This will involve others knowing of your situation, are you okay with this?”

Lana merely nodded. Dumbledore turned to Phineas. “If you would be so kind as to inform Sirius of the portkey in the kitchen?”

“Yes sir.” Said Phineas and he disappeared out of his picture.

Dumbledore turned to Lana, he had a warm smile on his face. “Now as you have mentioned I have a ‘stupid order’” Lana felt a pang of guilt in her stomach. “Well the headquarters are at the old home of Sirius Black who despite popular belief was not a death eater.”

“Yes, I guessed that from him not being at any meetings when I was little or at the graveyard this summer.”

“Well the house has been put under every protection, including the Fidelius Charm with me as secret keeper, if you ever find yourself in danger you are to apparate to number twelve Grimmauld Place where you will be met with…”

A man appeared in the room holding onto an old goblet. “Sirius.” Dumbledore smiled up at the man. He was tall with long black hair, he was in an expensive looking set of robes but you could still see several different tattoo’s. Dumbledore conjured a second Arm chair and gestured for the man to sit down. “Lana, I want you to meet Sirius Black.” He looked to the man “Sirius this is Lana Rowle.”

Black nodded to her, she nodded back. “Lana here was a very good friend of Thomas Stevens.”

Black’s expression softened. “Oh, I see, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Lana felt a bit stiff next to this man that she had never met. Dumbledore continued.

“As you know Sirius Lana accompanied Harry to the graveyard, but what you do not know is that she also remembers Voldemort’s return and was branded.” He nodded to Lana who pushed her sleeve back up to show Black the mark. Dumbledore continued. “Now Lana had generously offered to work from inside Voldemort’s ranks as a sort of spy.” Black’s face formed a look of being very impressed. “Now, I do not want any more children born to parents with different ideas harmed, you can understand this Sirius.” Black nodded again. “So in light of recent events-”

“-Say what happened.” Lana didn’t even realise she was talking until she had already said it.

“I’m sorry?”

“Say what happened, don’t sugar-coat it, neither of us need it.” she said looking between her and Black. She sat up straight as if that showed defiance. “Tom was murdered, there is no other way to put it.” She felt a power rise within her.

“So, in light of Thomas’s murder.” Dumbledore corrected himself. “I have offered the headquarters as a safe house, for Lana to go to if she is ever in danger.” He sat back before speaking again. “You must understand that this is top secret it is only you and I who know.”

Lana felt another pang of guilt as she thought of George who knew when he shouldn’t.

“I see, that’s understandable.” Blacks voice was gruff and almost dog’s bark. “Is that all Dumbledore?”

“I believe so, so if you would like to take the Portkey back, is should be set for as soon as you touch it.” Black nodded and made his way back to the goblet before he touched it, he turned back around and looked to the page strewn floor.

“Might I ask what happened here?”

“Ah yes.” Dumbledore said with a grin. “Lana decided that I had a few too many books on my shelf and decided to dispose of them.”

Black let out a laugh that once again sounded like a bark, touched the portkey and was gone.

Dumbledore then turned to Lana. “Now going back to my suggestion of occlumency, I would be willing to teach you the basics to improve your ability to block your mind from Voldemort.”

Lana nodded again. She was starting to feel rather tired. Her little outburst had really taken it out of her. Dumbledore seemed to sense this. “Well I have nothing else to add to this conversation, so unless you do, you are free to go.”

Lana got up from her seat and made her way to the door. As she reached it, she had a thought and turned back around. “You said that you don’t want any more kids like me and Tom hurt, and I just want to remind you that there are a whole bunch of them in this school who are currently in an environment that is going to lead to them wanting to join Voldemort, Slytherin house may have a stigma but we are all good kids deep down.” And with that she closed the door and made her way back to her common room.


	34. The Common Room

Lana was sat on the edge of the astronomy tower reading a letter she had gotten from Sirius. They had decided to keep up contact mainly because they both just needed someone to talk to. Lana would send Sirius little anecdotes and puzzles to keep him busy and Sirius would send back information and advice.

It had only been a week since they had met but considering letters had been a daily occurrence Lana already knew a lot about the man. She had learnt that he was best friends with Harry’s dad and Lupin and that he was Harry’s godfather. She had also learnt that Sirius had been the dog that she had seen at the end of her sixth year. He had yet to tell her the full story of how that had happened but she knew that he was getting there.

The atmosphere of the astronomy tower was very relaxed, it was rather chilly and rain was falling all around her, but Lana was very well bundled in thick and warm clothes. She was supposed to be filling out a star chart but the second the cold air had hit her face she had relaxed and forgotten about the stars. Lana was in a better place; she was finally in a position where she could accept the fact that Tom just wasn’t going to be around anymore. She had taken to carrying a picture of him around in one of the inside pockets of her robes. It was a polaroid that Alex had taken after the Yule Ball. It showed the him and Lana sprawled out of the sofas asleep, they were both still in their dress robes but they looked so peaceful.

Lana took a deep breath and got to work. Filling in star charts was interesting enough but Lana always preferred looking at the patterns of the night than just plotting them. She was just plotting Venus on her chart when she heard footsteps coming up behind her. She looked round and saw that it was George. She went back to her telescope. Lana hadn’t exactly spoken to her friends since her conversation with Dumbledore, they were all still acting rather weird. She had instead hung around with Felix ad his circle of friends. The rest of Felix’s friends were a breath of fresh air compared to the first guy she met. They were all so fun, they knew how to have a good laugh but were still really respective of Felix’s sexuality. It it was refreshing to see. Lana had really missed her friends but if they were going to make her feel uncomfortable and keep things from her, she was exactly going to stick around.

It was silent for a moment whilst Lana looked through the telescope for one of Jupiter’s moons. Once she had emerged, she spoke.

“Hey.” She was trying to keep her tone as light as possible and hide how awkward she felt. She didn’t make eye contact with him, but continued to look over her star chart.

“Hi, can we talk?” He still had a very relaxed tone.

“Looks like we already are.” Lana didn’t look up.

“Yeah, but like have an actual conversation. Preferably one where you look me in the eyes.”

“Yeah well I’m a bit busy at the moment.” She muttered coldly and went back to her telescope.

“Too busy to talk to me?” He was starting to sound frustrated. “Too busy to talk to any of us?”

“Yeah well it’s not like I started it.” Lana was still trying to get a moon’s position right on her chart. “What with you guys stopping conversations the second you see me. You’re not subtle, you know that right? I know you guys are hiding something from me.”

He didn’t say anything Lana moved from the telescope and started to move around the tower grabbing compasses and information sheets. “I just don’t understand why, am I just not trustworthy enough?” She was picking things up and putting them back down rather angrily to the point where a glass instrument broke and small shards of glass were now digging into her hand.

“Shit!” Lana stared down as blood began to ooze out of the spot where the glass had penetrated her skin. She had left her wand in her dorm as you often didn’t need it for astronomy and she didn’t really want to get into an argument with Filch about why she was walking the halls at night with her wand. 

“Come here let me look at it.” Lana hesitated for a moment but made her way over to him. He looked tired, but he still had an infectious warmth to him. He looked over her hand and them moved the both of them so that they were sat on one of the benches. He began to pull the glass out of her hands and deal with the cut, all by magic. Although Lana was definitely grateful for his help, she was silently judging his technique and knew that she wouldn’t been a lot quicker. She didn’t mind too much it had made her realise how much she had missed being this close to him. 

“I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you guys.” She said quietly. Still looking at the ground.

“No, you’re right,” he had the look of pure concentration on his face, it was Lana’s favourite thing to look at in potions nowadays. “Look, the thing we were hiding from you is well it’s sort of hard to explain.” He finished on the last cut and looked up at her. “Harry is setting up lessons for us to learn actual defence against the dark arts, because we’re not really getting much from Umbridge, but is going against every rule there is and we were-” He paused for a minute and Lana could tell that he was trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say. “Well, we were worried it would be too much for you.”

“What, the subject I got an O in would be too much for me?” Lana was slightly offended.

“To be fair you got Os in every subject, but that’s not what I meant. What I meant was… well this is going against the ministry isn’t it? so that’s going against your parents, and you’ve got so much pressure on you including Umbridge breathing down your neck, so we thought that you knowing about this would just add to everything.” He seemed nervous and Lana felt her expression soften. She understood where they were coming from, and appreciated the thought but…

“You could’ve told me that, instead of leaving me completely in the dark and making me feel insane.” She shifted herself so she could lean on his shoulder and hold onto his hands, looking out into the night sky.

“Yeah, I’m sorry.” He was absentmindedly fiddling with her fingers but Lana didn’t mind, it was gentle and comforting.

“It just all so much, you know? What I’m doing, and with everything that’s happened with Tom, I do not need you guys keeping secrets from me on top of all of that.” She nuzzled her head into the cape on his neck.

“Yeah, I’m really sorry I didn’t think about that, so what’s been going on with that?”

“Well, after Tom, Dumbledore wanted to have a place where I could go if I was in danger, so he introduced me to Sirius Black, and told me about the headquarters, so I guess I’m an official member of the order now?” Lana laughed emptily at the fact that she was eighteen and fighting in a war with grown adults.

“Really? They let you in before me? I’ve been begging my mum for ages, well Fred and I both have.”

“To be fair, I’m pretty sure my mother wouldn’t be too fond of me being there either, and it doesn’t count if only three people know, especially when one isn’t even supposed to know.”

“Wait seriously? I’m one of only three people to know?”

“Yep.”

“And Sirius Black and Albus Dumbledore are the other two?”

“Yep.”

“So, I’m on the same level as those two?” He was sitting up slightly with a grin.

“I guess so.” Lana laughed, quite enjoying his enthusiasm. “Its weird having you know, and Alex not know, but I didn’t exactly tell you.”

“Alex doesn’t know?” George seemed surprised by this.

“Well, he doesn’t know everything, he knows about the mark he’s talked to me about it, I told him I’d talk to him about it at some point but he hasn’t brought it up since, so neither will I.” she move her head so that it was gently resting on his shoulder. She had missed him, he laughs, his warmth, it had only been a week. There was likely going to several month long gaps between them seeing each other when she went off to infiltrate the Death Eaters, she was either going to have to appreciate her time now or start getting used to not seeing him as much.

Because of this new revelation, Lana was trying to stay up in the tower for as long as possible just talking, it didn’t work too well. As soon as Lana began to yawn George got up and began to insist that she needed to go to bed.

“C’mon, you’re exhausted, bed!”

“I’m fine.” Lana yawned. He gave her a look that genuinely made her recoil.

She started to pack up her astronomy stuff and clean up the broken glass, still yawning the entire time. Once her bag was on her shoulder and she was all packed up, she kissed George goodnight and was just going to make her way down the stairs of the tower, when she stopped.

“Why have you stopped?” He asked from behind her.

“Because it’s such a long walk and I’m so tired.” She yawned again her last few words being muffled by it. George let out a sigh and moved in front of her.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this.” And she crouched down a bit, and indicated for her to jump on his back. She used his shoulders as a push, wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist. She once again nuzzled her head on his shoulder.

“Comfortable?”

“Incredibly.” And they set off.

The trip was slow, and they got a few funny looks from paintings but Lana didn’t mind, he was so warm and she was so sleepy.

“Lan?”

“Mhm?”

“I don’t think I’ll make it all the way to the Slytherin dorms.”

“That’s alright as long as you can make it to the Gryffindor ones.” She mumbled sleepily

“And why’s that?” he asked in a playful tone. “That’s completely off route for the Slytherin dorms.”

“Yeah, well I thought I might as well camp out there for the night I’m too tired and my dorms are so cold at the moment.” Lana shuddered at the thought of her underwater bedroom.

“Alright but I warn you Lee snores.”

“Only one roommate who snores?” Lana laughed. “That’s an upgrade.”

Once they reached the common room Lana dropped back onto the floor and let George lead the way up to his dorm. He was already in a pair of joggers and a tee-shirt. He had obviously gone to bed for a bit before coming to talk to her. Fred and Lee were both asleep when the opened the door so they moved around very quietly. Lana was fully bundled up in jumper, coat, scarf, the lot. She took off her coat and scarf and George chucked her a plain black tee-shirt and some joggers. She slipped into the bathroom to change and tie her hair up into a bun and once she got back out George was already in bed. She slipped under the covers and he put an arm around her, she laid there, listening to his breathing, feeling his warmth. Lee’s light snores made Dot and Kat sound like monsters, the room was peaceful and welcoming and before long Lana found herself drifting into a deep sleep.

Lana woke the next morning to the sounds of light conversation and the smell of burning that seemed to follow the twins everywhere. She stretched a bit before sitting up and smiling at the room. It was a lot brighter than the Slytherin dorms, it actually got sunlight in the morning it had a warmth to it that no magic could recreate.

“Morning Rowle.”

“Morning Jordan.” Lana looked to see the guys fully dressed and sat on the floor playing exploding snap.

“So, you stayed the night here.” Fred said in a tone of mock discipline. “Very irresponsible of you as a Head Girl.”

“Yeah but about fifty percent of older Slytherins spend the night in different dorms. I’m fairly sure even the little ones have sleepovers.” She said getting up and picking up some of her clothes. “And besides it’s not uncommon especially in our year, I’m fairly sure Alice Wall hasn’t slept in the Hufflepuff dorms at all this year, but she and Daniel Waters are practically engaged.”

She picked up a deep blue tee from George’s trunk and her jeans from last night made her way to the bathroom door. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we found out I’m not the only non-Gryffindor in the tower right now.” And she made her way in to get changed and make her hair behave.

She was right. As she made her way through the common room, she passed a sixth year Ravenclaw that Lana knew because she was a prefect. Lana smiled at the girl as she seemed rather scared. She leaned in and let her voice drop to a low whisper.

“I’ll ignore that you’re here, if you ignore that I’m here, got it?” And with that the girl smiled and made her way out of the portrait hole.

The common room was already packed with people. Lana found Lucy sat in one of the armchairs by the fire peering over an essay. Lana dropped on to one of the arms and smiled at Lucy.

“Morning.” There was a pot of coffee on the table, Lana wasn’t really in the mood for coffee, she scanned room for a teapot.

“Morning.” Lucy did a doubletake and turned back to Lana. “When did you get here?”

Lana was still scanning the room. “There isn’t a teapot in here? Is there?”

“Lana?”

“I don’t really fancy coffee that much, and that’s all I can see.”

“Lana.”

“What?” She asked, finally turning back to Lucy.

“When did you get here?” She repeated.

“Oh, I spent the night.” She said still searching for a teapot, she found one. “Angelina could you pass me that teapot please?”

With a lazy flick of her wand Angelina let the teapot float towards where Lana and Lucy. Lana grabbed it from the air and smiled over to Angelina, who smiled back.

“You know you could’ve just summoned it.” Said Lucy not looking up from her essay.

“Yeah, but I don’t have my wand, or my cat. I’ll be right back.”

Around twenty minutes later Lana was once again sat by the fire with Nova in her lap and her wand in her hand and a cup of warm tea on the table. She and Lucy were both working on the same essay for charms because Flitwick had set it for both of his classes at the same time. It was a particularly tricky subject. ‘How to properly modify memories.’ The spells themselves were both fairly simple but the tricky bit was writing about how to use them and the correct order. Lana was just skimming over a section in her textbook (To properly modify memories, one must first remove unwanted memories before adding in false memories as a replacement) when she felt other people begin to sit around them, she looked up to see the twins and Lee who were all getting out parchment and quills.

“Oh, did snap get boring?” Lana asked sarcastically.

“A bit yeah.” Said Lee. Lana crossed the last T of her essay and moved so that George could take her seat as it was easier to reach the table. She slipped to the floor and leaned against his legs, Nova let out and indignant meow and jumped back onto George’s lap clearly upset at being moved to the ground. It was quite peaceful on the floor, that had been Lana’s only essay that she needed to complete, so she was very relaxed. The warmth of the Gryffindor tower only started to stifle Lana in the evening. Hufflepuffs Ravenclaws and even a few other Slytherins had come and gone throughout the day, all of Lana’s friends were currently sat around the common room. Lana was helping Harry and Ron with a potions essay, it was going well, she was just explaining how to properly zest one of the ingredients when there came a deep snort. Lana looked up to see Kenneth Towler a boy in her year looking at the group with a look of pure disgust.

“Problem Towler?” she said scratching out a line of Ron’s essay.

“It’s just,” he began in a drawl of superiority. “Potter, wont stop spreading his little fairy-tale of a second wizarding war.” Lana watched with a scowl as Harry looked down to his essay looking rather upset. “And yet.” Kenneth continued still with the same air of being better than everyone there. “Here he is, fraternizing with the enemy.” He nodded at Lana. The room had gone quiet everyone was looking over at what was happening. 

“Shut up Towler.” Said Ron angrily.

“What are you going to do about it Weasley give me a detention?” Lana had never liked Kenneth, he always had an attitude to him.

“Leave it Ron.” Lana said calmly. “If he wants me as his enemy that’s fine, I mean I wouldn’t call a Triwizard winner my enemy, personally, but Kenny here is entitled to say whatever he wants.” She gave Kenneth a very fake smile and then went back to what she was doing. The buzz of conversation started again and Lana took great satisfaction in watching Kenneth sulk his way up towards his dorm.


	35. Quidditch

“Rowle, Longreen, Alex says he wants you in the common room in your robes in the next ten minutes.” A voice called into the room very loudly, all five girls jerked awake. Lana and Alexus jumped out of their beds and started to get ready. The conditions for Quidditch looked good, it was grey skies but there was little wind. Lana had showered the night before so that Lex could shower in the morning, she put on her robes and plaited her hair whilst Lex used the bathroom and then went to brush her teeth once Lex was finished. Once they were both ready, they made their way down to the common room where they were met by the rest of the team waiting for them. Alex was pacing whilst talking about strategy, Garza and McCoy were polishing their brooms and Pucey and Malfoy were putting badges of their robes that Lana couldn’t quite make out.

“Right.” Alex said looking over to Lana and Lex. “Now that the whole team is here, I’ve got a few points Longreen, McCoy.” Lex and McCoy both nodded to show they were listening. “There isn’t a good sun today so try and find other ways to sneak up on opponents.” They nodded again. 

“Malfoy, Potter’s got a good eye so try and follow him for the snitch, and if you can’t get to it first try and block him from getting it.” Malfoy nodded albeit a bit reluctantly. Alex finished up his speech and the team made their way down to breakfast. Most of the Slytherin table were just in green clothes but a small section in the middle were wearing the same badges and looking rather smug. Alex came up behind Lana looking nervous.

“What do you reckon the badges are about?” He said scanning the group of about fifty students that seemed to be wearing them.

“I don’t know, I saw Malfoy and Pucey wearing them, I’m sure it’s nothing.” She reassured him.

“If it was nothing, they would’ve told us about it.” He said scanning the table.

“Calm down.” She laughed. “If they are going to be dicks, it’s not our problem to discipline them.” At that moment, a red robed arm found its way around Lana’s shoulders and she looked up to see George decked out in his Quidditch robes.

“Why have you got to looks so cute in Quidditch robes Lana? I’m not going to be able to concentrate on the match.” He said kissing her on the cheek.

“One of my many tactics.” Alex joked, and he made his way to eat some breakfast. Lana noticed that Felix gone to sit down next to Alex, he was wearing some jeans, a jumper and a Slytherin scarf that definitely belonged to Alex.

Ever since the conversation on the Astronomy tower things had gone back to normal, even though she really wanted to be apart of a secret defence association, Lana had told the others that they could do what they want and she would keep it quiet, but she didn’t want to get involved because Umbridge watched her every steps and she did want to have to deal with her parents if they were found out. It was nice to have them all back, she had really missed talking to them, but that was the thing with Lana, she would just avoid people whenever she felt that something was going wrong. It was as if, she thought the problem would deal with itself if she left it alone.

She and George had taken to sitting up at the Astronomy Tower together whenever Lana had to do work up there. Lana loved it, she always found herself talking about everything she had on her chest. It was also one of the only times where she could roll up her sleeves. It felt liberating, just the feeling of wind on her forearm made her feel like she was being defiant. The mark was definitely getting darker. Dumbledore had checked it after their latest occlumency lesson. Occlumency was difficult but Lana was just starting to get the hang of it. Dumbledore had still been able to watch as her dad threw her around the garden when she was six, but apparently, he hadn’t been able to see her dad’s face so she was improving. 

“You don’t look too bad yourself you know.” She said letting her head rest on his chest. Angelina passed them on her way to get some breakfast.

“Don’t go easy on her just because she’s your girlfriend.” She said only half joking.

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Angelina.” And she too left them for some breakfast.

“How’s Ron doing?” She asked drinking a cup of tea as she had already eaten her breakfast.

“Not great, it’s his nerves.” He said as Fred came up to them with two cups of coffee. “He’s okay until people start watching him.” He drained the coffee in one and the made his way down to the Quidditch Pitch with Fred.

Lana hung around for a bit before heading down to the pitch herself. She put on her robes and gloves before sitting down with the rest of the team. Pucey and Malfoy were still wearing those badges Lana was trying to avoid looking at them because if she didn’t know what was happening, it wasn’t her problem.

“Okay, team. Let’s go.”

They all got up, carrying their brooms on their shoulders. Everyone had Nimbus two thousand and ones, apart from Alex who had the Firebolt. They stepped onto the pitch to thunderous applause and Lee Jordan’s commentary.

“Now the new Slytherin team Captain, Alexander Rowle has gone for a new technique with his team, which is actually having good players.” Lana let herself laugh at this, because he was right this was the first good team they had actually had in years. “We have Garza, Malfoy, McCoy, Longreen, Pucey, and the Rowles.” Alex shook hands with Angelina and then everyone mounted their brooms and rose into the air.

Madame Hooch released the balls and the game began. Alex got the Quaffle first and he and Lana began to zigzag down the pitch passing in between the two of them when a Bludger came shooting at Alex he ducked to avoid it but the Quaffle fell out of his hands and was caught by Angelina, who began passing to Katie Bell they made their way up to the goal posts but Garza was able to save it. He passed it to Lana and she began to shoot up the pitch towards the Gryffindor goal posts she ducked under Alicia and flew over Harry and began to line up her shot. Lee’s commentary persisted throughout,

“Here comes Triwizard champion Alana Rowle, one of the few Slytherin purebloods I actually like, go on then, Lana, you can take this shot without me being a dick about it.” Lana laughed as McGonagall yelled at him. She lined up her shot as Lee introduced Ron as the new keeper she made a move to shoot left but swerved to shoot right, Ron fell for it and the Quaffle flew through the right goal post to many cheers from the Slytherin end, except the cheers seemed to all sound the same like it was some kind of song. Before Lana could hear what it was a Bludger was flying at her and she had to roll on her broom to avoid it hitting her in the head. When she had righted herself, Gryffindor was in possession and she was zooming up the pitch to help Pucey try and intercept. They succeeded and Pucey and Alex were now passing the Quaffle up the pitch where Alex was able to score the second goal of the match. As they did Lana began to listen to the song it did not sound cheery.

Weasley was born in a bin,

He always lets the Quaffle in,

Weasley will make sure we win,

Weasley is our king

Lana froze in the air, she looked to where the sound was coming from it was the small section of Slytherins who she had seen wearing the badges but she wasn’t worried about them, she was worried about how the sound was carrying it made it look as if it were the whole house singing. She didn’t have time to think about it as she had just been passed the Quaffle and was now haring down the pitch.

The match was brutal, for the Gryffindors at least, Ron had yet to save a goal, and Garza had only let two through, both had been by Angelina. Lana was trying to intercept the Quaffle, the song was still going, they were singing it in a loop now, instead of just when Slytherin scored. Katie had just scored another goal, Lana now had the Quaffle under her arm when there was a sudden cheer from the stands, she turned on her broom to see Harry holding the snitch, they had lost.

She flew over to where Alex was. “Ah well, we tried our best. And we definitely lost by less than a hundred points so we’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.” He said gloomily. “So, Malfoy obviously did a bit of conducting.” He said nodding to where Malfoy was standing. Lana turned to look at the scene. Alex was saying something else but she wasn’t listening, the twins were having to be held back by the rest of their team whilst Malfoy spoke. The chasers holding Fred, and Harry holding onto George. She was going to help, to clam them down, to tell them that attacking Malfoy was stupid, but before she could chaos ensued.

Malfoy had obviously said something that struck a nerve with Harry as he had relinquished his grip on George and they were both sprinting at Malfoy. Before Lana could even scream for them to stop, though she wasn’t sure that they would hear her, they had both pounced on Malfoy and were now sinking their fists into wherever they could reach. She and Alex exchanged a look and they both went into a dive towards the frosty grass of the pitch, the noise from the stadium was filling Lana’s ears as she touched down on the ground rather hard, her ankles did not appreciate the firm landing. Lana’s broom fell to the ground as she rushed towards the scene, but Hooch got there first, Harry and George were thrown from Malfoy and she began to shout at them.

“What do you think you’re doing?” She screamed. “I’ve never seen behaviour like it, back up to the castle both of you! And straight to your head of house’s office! Go, now!”

They both began to storm off the pitch, Lana tried to catch George’s eye, but he did not turn back, he just marched up to the castle, without giving her the time of day. She stood there for a minute looking horrified, before the moans of Malfoy snapped her out of her trance an she rushed over to him. His nose was bloody and Lana could tell that some of his ribs were broken. Lana felt around her pockets but couldn’t find her wand anywhere, so she grabbed Malfoy’s arms and flung one around her shoulders to support him, Lex saw what she was doing and put his other arm around her shoulders and they made their way up towards the hospital wing.

“Thank you.” Malfoy muttered. “Those foul blood traitors.”

“I will drop you Malfoy.” She said as she readjusted him on her shoulder. “And don’t act like you didn’t deserve it.” Her face was red, as much as Malfoy did deserve it, she was furious, how did George think that was a good idea? “Honestly can’t you just lose graciously?”

“And I don’t blame them.” Lex, who had been rather quiet the whole time, had finally spoke. “Those badges, that song, you lot are so foul.”

They had reached the Hospital wing, Madame Pomfrey began to fuss over Malfoy instantly. She had only managed to get him into a bed when the doors boomed open and Alex came storming into the room looking furious. Felix was behind him, he looked just as angry but Lana could tell that he had come with him to make sure Alex didn’t beat up Malfoy as well.

“HOW DARE YOU!” Alex screamed as he stormed into the room. “HAVE YOU NEVER HEARD OF PITCH ETIQUETTE?”

“Mister Rowle, I am sure Mister Malfoy deserves whatever abuse you will throw at him but until his ribs and nose are mended you are to leave him alone.” Madame Pomfrey said curtly as she began to mend Malfoy’s ribs and Lana started to work on his nose. “Thank you miss Rowle.”

Lana nodded at her and then turned to Alex. “You should probably go and find Angelina and explain everything to her.” She said whilst cleaning up the blood on his nose.

“Yeah.” Alex muttered, panting. “Yeah, I’ll go now.” And he made his way back out of the room Felix gave her look that said I’ll handle him and he too, made his way out of the door.

Lex, who had been sitting quietly on one of the beds, catching her breath, got up and also headed for the door. “I’m going to get my bat and our brooms from the pitch.” Lana went back to fixing up the last bits of Malfoy.

Once Malfoy was all sorted Madame Pomfrey gave him a potion to help him sleep, insisting he needed rest. Lana stayed in the hospital wing for the rest of the day, keeping herself busy by helping madame Pomfrey with small jobs and asking her as many questions as she could. Alex joined them at one point so he could shout at Malfoy as soon as he woke up, Lana had slipped off to take a quick shower and change but had come straight back. She was now making some beds and checking up on some of the plants when Alex spoke from the bed he was sitting on.

“So, is there any reason you’re hiding from your boyfriend in here?” he asked casually.

“What?” She asked looking out of the window at the fresh snow that had started to fall. “I’m not hiding from anyone.”

“Sure you’re not.” You practically taste the sarcasm, coming off him. “I mean you’ve been hold up here all day, and haven’t eaten since breakfast. But no, you’re definitely not avoiding him.”

“So what if I am?” She snapped. “I have no idea what to say to him. I don’t even know if he got punished, I mean McGonagall would have done something but what?”

“A lifetime ban.” Alex cut in to her little ramble.

“What?” Lana turned to him. “She wouldn’t.”

“She didn’t, Umbridge did.” Alex said with an ugly look on his face. “She gave Harry and both twins a ban and took their brooms.”

“But Fred didn’t even do anything?”

“I know.” He sighed. “I suppose I should be thanking her, she certainly thinks that, came up to me after she did it, told me that this was her way of legging us up. Not that I want her help.”

“Well that just makes the whole situation worse, how on earth am I supposed to talk to him if he’s got a lifetime ban?”

“I dunno, but as much as he shouldn’t have attacked Malfoy, you can’t let this ruin your relationship, that’s what he wants.” He gestured to Malfoy who was still asleep.

“How’d you mean?”

“Well I was talking with Katie Bell and she told me everything he said.” Lana leaned in. “Well he started with some insults about the Weasley parents, and then moved on to how a respectable pureblood like you would wind up with someone like him.” Lana stiffened in her seat, and Alex continued. “At first he joked about George confunding you, but then said he wouldn’t have the brains, Malfoy then came to the conclusion they you were only keeping him around for a good shag, he then rounded the whole thing off my insulting Harry’s dead mum.” Once Lana was sure that Alex was finished, she rose from her seat and made her way out of the doors and towards the Great Hall where dinner was still happening.

Once she reached to large doors, she found him in the centre of the room. She had never been this publicly affectionate with him, she had always lived in fear of her parents finding out, but they already knew, if anything they would see this as a good way of covering her tracks. She nodded to herself as if confirming her thought processes, and then marched between the table to reach him.

Once she did, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close to her and then let her lips crash into his. There were a few cheers and wolf whistles, but Lana didn’t care. They pulled apart he smiled at her with that smile she loved so much.

“You know I wasn’t sure that anything could turn my day around but you’ve managed it.” He joked with his arms around her waist.

“I love you, for you, because of how funny you are and how carign you are.” She said in a fierce tone. “I do not keep you around just because you’re a good shag.” She paused for a moment. “Although that is a nice extra.”

“I see.” He laughed. “Well thanks for giving me that confirmation.”

“Anytime.” She let him go. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I am going to cut Malfoy open and snap his freshly mended ribs in half.” And she made her way back out of the hall.

“You’re going to make a great healer someday.”

“Oh shut up.”


	36. Being Realistic

“So, it turns out that a relationship with a blood traitor was the final straw for the pureblood community.”

Lana was sat at the Ravenclaw table for breakfast, her friends were sat around her passing a letter, that she had just been sent, around the group. They all looked horrified. The contents of the letter weren’t pleasant, but they weren’t supposed to be. This was the fake letter.

The real letter had come a few days before, telling her that she was doing a good job at keeping up her appearances, and that as far as they could tell no one was suspecting her. They had also warned her about the fake letter. The fake letter was now being passed around the group as each person wanted to read it individually. But she wanted people to see it, that was the whole point.

It was very long; Lana could just imagine her parents staying up late working on it together. The first two pages had gone on and on about how disappointed they were, how Lana was going down a dangerous path, and that if she kept up this behaviour she would not be allowed to return to Hogwarts after Christmas if she continued her behaviour in that manner. The next page had a list of new possible suitors for her now that Tom was out of the picture. Lana didn’t like the look of a single one of them, they were all beefy men from places that sent their kids to Durmstrang. Her mother had always deemed men from Beauxbatons and Hogwarts to ben to brittle and delicate. Tom had always been the one she liked the most, the only one she had really accepted as a possibility. Because even though they now believed that she was ready to fight against Dumbledore, they still wanted to marry her off the second they could.

If all of this was real to Lana, the letter wouldn’t even have been the worst part, the worst part would’ve been how all of the actual purebloods within Hogwarts reacted. They must’ve all had an inkling about her, Malfoy had brought it up on the pitch, but this was obviously the final straw, all respect she had gained over the course of last year had been lost. They talked in front of her as if she wasn’t even there, she could handle most of it, it was fairly harmless stuff along the lines of…

“Honestly I never expected it from her.”

“I always thought that she was respectable.”

“I mean she did hang around with mudbloods, but I believed that she would let that go once he was back.”

“Yeah, but a bloodtraitor? The nerve of her.”

Lana was able to handle those sorts of conversations with a deep breath and starting to talk with whoever was next to her. They all had different ways of dealing with it. Felix, all the girls from her dorm, Diane, and Sam would all speak a little louder. Fred and Lucy had a tendency to do a big thing to drown out the people talking, Lucy would do some sort of charm that caused a disturbance, and Lana had to hold Fred’s robes to make sure he didn’t actually hex the people instead of his surroundings, more times than she could count. Mandy would find some excuse for her and Lana to go a different direction to get to their lessons. George would just throw his arm around Lana’s shoulder or place a gentle kiss on her cheek, Lana liked that he was going for the less antagonistic route, but she was fairly sure that he did rude gestures over her head.

But some of the stuff that was said right in front of her was just too much for her to handle. It came from people close to Malfoys circle, seventh years like Montague, and those two goons called Crabbe and Goyle liked to talked about how long they think Lana will last now that everything’s out in the open.

“I don’t know how she expects to live like that? I mean we all saw what happened to Stevens, she’ll be next I guarantee it.”

“How long d’you reckon she lasts?”

“My bet is, she doesn’t come back from Christmas.”

No matter who she was walking with Lana always found herself holding them back. As much as the comments made her uncomfortable, she had to admit, it would make her turning against everyone a lot more realistic. No one would ever believe that she turned because she began to agree with the ideals, the idea that Lana got scared of what Voldemort would do to her. She was pretty sure Voldemort himself believed that one of the reasons she had listened to him was because she was scared.

Ava wasn’t doing much better. She was avoiding her parents in every way possible. She knew that her parents set the werewolf on Tom and that if she did anything she would end up with the same fate. She had told them that she was staying over at Christmas to study for her N.E.W.Ts as didn’t want to waste any time. Both Lucy and Lana had offered to stay with her to make it more realistic, but Ava had insisted that Lana needed to go home to talk things over with her parents (“You still have a chance, I’m not letting you pass that up.”)

Lana didn’t have the heart to tell Ava that she didn’t have a chance with her parents anymore. The mark on her arm was a constant reminder of that. It had started to burn everyone once and awhile. She knew that this meant he was communicating with Death Eaters in the outside world, but that didn’t mean it didn’t scare her every time it pulsed. It never seemed to be at a convenient time for her. It always seemed to happen when she was in lessons or around a big crowd. She was starting to use the excuse of a rash she got from a biting plant in Herbology, everyone seemed to be buying it except for Alex and George, but George didn’t need to buy it.

Alex on the other hand was difficult, Lana was having to dance circles around him to avoid him finding everything out. He was smart though, and he knew about the mark. Lana knew that she was going to have to start acting different around him to get him to believe her.

It was at that moment that Alex sat down next to her at the table, Lana could help but notice that Alex was staring down the table at Felix.

“Hey? Hey, lovebird, I’m this side of you.”

“Yeah, sorry.” Alex paused for a moment before beginning to speak. “Do you think Christmas will be weird?”

“I hope not.” Lana was fiddling with a button on her cardigan and looking out of a snow covered window. “Uncle Ajax isn’t into that stuff as much as much as mum and dad are.” She said sitting up a bit. “He stayed neutral in the last war, maybe he’ll keep neutral in this one too.”

It was true that their Uncle Ajax had never really taken sides, he had never done anything to help those on Dumbledore’s side, but he had also never really interacted with Death Eaters besides from his brother, and even when he did, they acted as if Voldemort wasn’t even a thing.

Lana had always liked her Uncle Ajax, he was cool. There was no other way too put it. he managed all of the curse breakers at Gringotts meaning he made a lot of money. This meant that he always was able to wriggle his way out of his mothers demands for him to marry a nice pure-blooded woman, like Thorfinn. Ajax had yet to marry, he lived in a large mansion by himself, but he made money and was well respected so Lana’s grandmother laid off him a bit. Lana quite liked that Ajax was still single, it meant she didn’t have an aunt or cousins to pretend to like, although she was pretty sure that if her Uncle ever did get married, it would have to be an amazing woman to keep up with him.

“Wait who’s Uncle Ajax?” Fred asked.

“Awesome name though.” George added.

“Oh, he’s our dad’s brother, and he is probably one of the coolest people I know.” Alex light up in the way he always did whenever he talked about Ajax 

“He has also said several times that Alex is his favourite family member.” Lana piped up. “Alex loves him, he’s a real role model to him.” She said whilst grabbing a brioche.

“I thought it was pretty hard to find role models within your family?” Lucy asked.

“Yeah well Ajax isn’t actually that bad, is he a hero? No. But he isn’t doing anyone’s bidding really, he’s his own man.” Alex said whilst making a bowl of cereal.

“I see.” Said Lucy.

“Yeah, but within our family, being your own person is sort of the bench mark.” Lana said pouring herself some black coffee.

“But you guys are going to pass that aren’t you?” Fred asked

“Yeah.” Alex and Lana said this unison but when they looked at each other, they both knew that this wasn’t true. Alex knew about Lana’s mark, and Lana knew that Alex had been freaked out by Tom’s death and now planned to go live with Ajax during all this, to keep himself safe. To the outside world, Alex would just reach the benchmark and Lana, well Lana wouldn’t even be able to see it. George could sense that Lana wasn’t struggling to find what to say next so he changed the subject.

“So there’s enough snow for us to have a rematch from that snowball from last year, so bundle up everyone because it’s game time.”

Lana let out a sigh. “Really?”

“Yep, c’mon get up.” He said grabbing her hands and pulling her out of her seat. Lana got up and made her way with Ava and Alex back towards the Slytherin dorms to grab coats and scarfs.

Within half an hour everyone was out in the grounds throwing snowballs everywhere. There weren’t really any teams, it was sort of a free for all. No one was safe, the group was moving backwards as the fight continued everyone had turned on Fed and George as they had teamed up to attack all the entire group. Fred and George were about ten feet away from the group to avoid being hit by a tsunami of snowballs. Lana was at the front of the group as she wanted to repay Fred for the snowball, she had gotten to the face five minutes before. She stepped forward and the ground made a sound that made Lana’s stomach turn, it didn’t make the normal rustling sound that the grassy grounds made, instead a thud sounded as she put her foot down, it sounded heavy and like hollow wood. Lana took another step and the same thud sounded where her foot made contact to the ground.

Lana made a quick and instinctive decision she threw her arms out to stop the rest of the group from moving any further. They all followed her lead and took several steps back, Lana righted herself and turned to look at Fred and George who both looked extremely confused.

“Lana?” Fred called over to her. “What’s wrong?”

“Okay, don’t freak out.” Lana called back. “But how good are you guys at ice skating?” She asked.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” George asked looking nervous.

“Because, er, well, you guys have sort of walked right onto the lake without realising.” She said quickly.

“What?” They said in unison.

“The lake, you’re on the lake.” She said panic rising in her voice.

“Oh.” George said looking down at his feet with mild alarm etched on his face. “Well shit.”

“I mean we’ve never really skated before.” Said Fred. “But it doesn’t seem to be cracking dos it.

“Yeah okay, but be careful.” Lana said and she watched as they moved a bit closer towards the group.

“You worry too much, you know that right?”

“Yeah, well I don’t really want to have to do CPR if you guys fall in.” She said quietly.

“But we aren’t falling in did we?”

“Yeah I suppose.” Lana said looking back out at the lake. “How deeply frozen d’you reckon it is?”

“I think it’s frozen solid.” Fred said looking back. “So there’s no chance of us falling in.”

“Oh really?” Alex piped up and he gave Lana a look.

“No.” Lana said realising what he was suggesting. “No, absolutely not, Alex it’s too dangerous.”

“But Lana it’s not dangerous.” Alex pleaded. “Loke at those two, they’re fine.” And before Lana could stop him Alex had conjured ice skates and gone to join Fred and George on the lake.

“Alex you get back here right now!” Lana called to him as he skated around Fred and George who were laughing.

“You’ll have to come and catch me!” He called back.

Lana sighed and conjured herself some skates that sat at the bottom of her shoes and skated out onto the ice.

“Alex, stop messing around!” She said as she skated to catch up with him. He zoomed off in a different direction and Lana followed him. But as she moved along the ice with great ease (the family lake that was much smaller and safer often froze over in the winter as well) and as the wind rushed through her hair she let out an involuntary laugh and all of a sudden she and Alex were elven and twelve again and skating on the lake with their parents on New Years day with Lana in her first year of Hogwarts and her mum was teaching her how to do a spinning jump.

They stayed skating for about another hour everyone had joined them, on the ice. Lana spent most of her time holding onto George’s hands as he attempted to move forward. He wasn’t the best at skating, but at least he had tried, Fred had decided to stay on dry land with Lucy to make a snowman. 

It was all so perfect, at one point Hermione was spotted making her way down the grounds and Fred called out to her.

“Hey, Hermione where’s Harry and Ron?”

“Upstairs,” she called back, “they’re finishing their homework.”

“Ah I see the perfect opportunity to distract them.”

“No Fred leave them alone.” Lana called but it was too late Fred had already made his way over to one of the windows that looked into the Gryffindor common room. And even though Fred couldn’t see into the room as it was too high up, he was still able to make the snowballs hit the windows with precision. George turned to Lana and gave her a pleading look.

“Oh, go on then.” She said exasperated. And he made his way off the ice with a lot more skill than when he had started.

Lana stayed skating for a while but then the one person who could ruin her mood came striding down the grounds, and she was dressed in foul green robes.

“Ah, Head Girl.” She said in a sickly voice.

“Does she know you have a name.” Alex asked leaning on her shoulder.

“To be honest I don’t think so.”

“Now, ice skating on the lake,” Umbridge was standing with her hands in a position like she was about to start singing opera. “Not very responsible of you is it?”

Lana felt her insides curl up, even though Umbridge was being completely in the wrong, there had never been a rule against ice skating on the lake. “Now I have some errands to attended to and I need your help so if you would please come with me.” This was not a request.

“But professor, I’m not on duty, if you need help, there will be plenty of prefects who would be more than willing to help right now because they are on duty.” Lana said plainly.

“Yes, but I would like your help, specifically.” She said, her tone now harsh and cold.

Lana looked to her friends before letting out a sigh and making her way over to Umbridge who put her hand on Lana’s shoulder in a claw like grip. Then Lana remembered that George was still outside she called out.

“Hey George?”

Lana heard him call out a faint call of, “what?”, but before she could tell him where she was going Umbridge practically dragged her up the grounds.

“No time for distractions.” She said rather quickly, and she led Lana up towards her office.

Lana had yet to be in Umbridge’s office, and after looking at it, she hoped to never be in it again. It was a vile pink, everywhere, even her equipment was pink. There were china plates on the wall that all held images of cats and kittens, however Lana could only see cats that had soft coloured coats. There was not a single black cat hair in sight.

Umbridge gestured for Lana to sit in one of the violently pink chairs and Lana obliged. The chair was comfortable enough, Lana sat with her left leg crossed over her right and Umbridge sat opposite her.

Umbridge charmed her teapot to start brewing some tea and then turned to stare at Lana, her fat fingers interlocked.

“So, Alana.” She began to pour two cups of tea for the both of them. “I have heard some rather discouraging things these last few days,” she shuffled in her seat and continued. “I was very displeased to hear that you keep close company with a blood traitor, I don’t think that’s very good of you.”

Lana stared her incredulously for a minute before speaking, why was it her concern who Lana spent her time with. “I’m sorry Professor but who I spend my time with is my business.” She said firmly.

“Well I don’t think it is.” Umbridge had gone back to that sickly tone, but she seemed almost flustered Lana took great enjoyment in knowing that she was getting under the woman’s skin. However, that lack of stability disappeared as quickly as it came. Umbridge took a sip of her tea (Lana’s had been left untouched) and continued. “You are Alana Rowle, not only do you have fame from the Triwizard Tournament, but your family is incredibly well known and you running around with a blood traitor will not give them a good name. Now although I cannot force you to end your relationship with this young Weasley I can influence you onto the right path.”

She nudged Lana’s cup towards her and Lana finally took a sip, much like the woman’s whole presence the tea was far too sweet. “Now I have come to the understanding that you wish to be a healer.”

“Yes, I’ve been doing lots research into it and been studying of past text papers and text books-” Lana’s little ramble was cut off by Umbridge raising her hand and making that stupid ‘ba ba bub’ sound that someone makes when the want the person they are talking to, to be quiet.

“I was not suggesting that this is a good idea, we have far too many healers as it, and they are all far to soft.” Lana curled in on herself a bit, Umbridge was the first teacher to have ever discouraged her. “You would be much better suited within Law Enforcement like your parents, they do excellent work within that sector.”

“I don’t think I will, all my other professors say I have far too much talent to become a corrupt lawyer.” Lana said coolly.

“Well.” Lana could tell that Umbridge was reaching her last nerve. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you this but the Minister has heard a lot about you from me, and has decided to offer you a position within his office, a high ranking one at that, but trust me when I tell you that going down this path of recklessness will lose you that position.

Lana thought about Percy Weasley for a moment, about how he had left after rowing with his parents, how he was a complete git. She knew that she did not want to be in that company, and that they would not want to be in her company after a little while.

“You know what? I think I’m okay with that.” And before Umbridge could say another word, Lana got up from her seat and made her way out of the room leaving the door wide open.

She took several steps before pushing herself up against the wall. She stood there listening for a couple of minutes before she heard what she wanted to hear. It started with a little sigh, and then footsteps and finally the sound of the door closing. Lana had always taken great satisfaction in leaving the door open at the end of arguments. It was always nice to know that she made the other person get up and close it.

As she made her way back to the Slytherin common room Lana was met with Alex and Felix interlocked with each other, they obviously thought that this corridor was deserted.

She let out a small cough then a louder one. They both turned around and separated very quickly, so much so, that Alex stumbled at bit as he moved.

“Good afternoon gentlemen.” She said casually.

“Lana didn’t see you there.” Felix was trying to mimic Lana’s tone but failing.

“Yeah that was evident.” Lana laughed. She noticed that they were both looking at each other with nervous looks on their faces.

“You guys aren’t seriously worried about me being weird about this? I set you up remember?”

“Yeah, I guess it was just a force of habit.” Alex sighed.

“Oh okay.” Lana suddenly had a thought. “Alex could I have a word.”

“Yeah sure.” He got up, gave Felix a last smile and made his way into a deserted classroom with Lana.

“What’s up?” He asked, sitting down at one of the desks. Lana moved herself to sit opposite him.

“Look, you and Felix can do whatever you want, but I’d just be careful if I were you.”

Alex gave her a look of confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Lana had to take a minute to figure out how she wanted to put this lightly. “It’s just we have a lot of people looking at us, and if you go around doing that in places that aren’t that discreet, you are going to get caught by someone who isn’t your cool sister.”

“What? So you think that Felix and I should end it?” Lana could tell that Alex was getting rather defensive.

“No,” Lana was now pleading with Alex to just listen her and understand what she was saying “It’s just, I got grilled by Umbridge, about my career plans and my relationship status, just because she knew who my parents were.” She explained. “We are being watched all the time you just need to be careful, that’s all.” 

Alex had stood up from his chair and was now pacing along the length of the classroom. “Well you’re not being very careful, are you? What with that filthy great mark in your arm.” He was on the verge on shouting now.

“What has this got to do with you and Felix?” Alex didn’t say anything. “This hasn’t got anything to do with that, has it? this is just you using a small disagreement to go back to old problems.” 

“But its not and old problem,” Alex was now leaning against a wall. “This is a very current problem that you have been avoiding for months, why?” 

Lana let out a small sigh she had been expecting this. “Al, can we talk about this another time?” 

“No, we can’t” Alex was officially in shouting mode, it wasn’t as bad as when he was shouting at Malfoy, but it was still the worst he had ever shouted at Lana. “You have been putting this off since August, why wont you just tell me what you’re doing, what are you even doing, because you don’t seem to be planning your escape.” He had now moved onto angrily gesturing. “If you are being so careful why are you not doing anything about this?”

Lana wanted to stop and tell him everything, how she wasn’t a bad person, how she did already have a plan in action, but she couldn’t, it wasn’t safe for him to know, not whilst he was still living under their parents roof, so she took a deep breath and continued. 

“Alex, not doing anything is the safest option, you have to understand that.” She had managed to make her tone calm and level again. 

“NO IT ISN’T.” Alex had begun pacing again. 

That split second where Lana’s calmness was unbreakable was gone. He just didn’t seem to be listening to her. Even if she was secretly spying on Death Eaters, she knew deep down that sticking around was the safest option. She just needed to get him to understand that, to keep her cover safe. She rose from her seat, matching Alex’s tone. 

“YES IT IS.” She was now fuming, and even though she only came up to Alex shoulders he took several steps back. “DID YOU FORGET WHAT HAPPENED TO TOM THAT QUICLY?” 

Alex shook his head looking terrified. 

“HE WAS MURDERED ALEX, MURDERED.” Alex looked like he was on the verge of tears now, Lana felt a pang of guilt in her stomach. She took a deep breath to compose herself. “I’m sorry I shouted, but you have to understand that you are setting yourself down the same path, what happened to quietly living with Ajax?” 

“First off, No I’m not, Tom and Ava’s parents are far worse than ours will ever be, they never got their kids firebolts, and second off, I’ve convinced Felix to come with me, and I’m going to work on mum and dad next, and once they’re sorted you can let go of this idea that you need to hang around with those people just to please them.” Alex was still hopelessly clinging to the idea that their parents were going to let this go, and Lana knew in that moment that she was going to have to be the bad guy. 

“Alex be reasonable.” She looked around to check for other people and rolled up her sleeve. She began speaking in a low voice. “Do you honestly think that I would have this on my arm if they were any different? They are going down the same path they did last time, and they are dragging us with them.”

Alex went quiet but Lana could tell that he was still seething with rage. “You may still be sixteen but you have more of a chance than getting out than I do, you just need to bide your time, and then you can go live with Felix and Ajax for the rest of your life for all I care.” 

“What and you’re just going to stick around because you’ve been branded?” 

“Yes.” Lana said plainly. “I have no other choice.” 

“Tom wouldn’t want this.” And with that Alex stormed out of the room.


	37. Exhaustion

It was probably the longest Lana and Alex had ever gone without talking to each other, weeks had passed and they had not said a word to each other. Lana was honestly a little terrified that this might be it, that they wouldn’t talk again until all of this was over. She tried to brush it off for the time being, it was just one more thing to add to the constant pit in her stomach.

The pit had started after the argument, she had not told anyone what it was about, not even George, but everyone knew that she and Alex were not on speaking terms. Dumbledore knew, he had seen it during one of their occlumency practices. The pit was just getting deeper and deeper, every time Alex avoided eye contact, every letter from her parents, every small mention of what was going on outside of the castle grounds.

Lana knew that part of this was just her being exhausted, she had a lot on her plate all the time. She had just hit her breaking point and was really hoping for a quiet Christmas. She knew that she’d hit her snags but she couldn’t see too much going wrong.

It was late and Lana was on her last patrol before the Christmas holidays, the halls of the school had never been more welcoming, Lana took great pleasure in knowing that in two days she would be sitting on a train with the Weasleys and Harry to go home.

The night sky was clear and full of stars and Lana could just tell that the air would be crisp outside, she and Felix were just passing Professor Flitwick’s office. He was standing outside, which was weird as it was rather late at night. He had his fist clenched and looked as if he was biting his tongue.

“Is everything alright professor?” Felix asked kindly.

Flitwick looked as if he was ready to hit someone, which was very unusual for the man, he was normally so warm and endearing. He looked at Felix and Lana for a minute, as if he couldn’t quite make out who they were. Lana watched cautiously as he took a deep breath and began to process what had just happened and who he was now talking to.

“Yes, sorry, it's just…” He trailed off and looked to the end of the corridor, Lana surveyed the man, he was clearly angry, but in a shocked sort of way, Lana thought back to her interaction after ice skating.

“It was Umbridge, wasn’t it?”

Flitwick let out a deep sigh, “yes it was, that woman knows no boundaries.”

“She really doesn’t.” Felix laughed. “What did she do this time?”

“I really shouldn’t be telling you two, she is still your teacher.”

Lana and Felix exchanged a look. “C’mon sir, it’s us, we won’t tell.”

“Fine, but only because I trust you,” he opened his office door, “why don’t you come in for some tea.”

Lana and Felix obliged, feeling very proud that they were considered important enough to get to gossip with teachers. It was an enjoyable tea break; they laughed and told their horror stories of Umbridge. As the teapot began to feel rather empty and they were finishing off listening to a story about Professor Flitwick having to get ordained to marry his best friends, (“could marry you two right now if I wanted to, although I supposed you’d need a member of the minister’s office to make it completely official), they heard commotion coming from outside the office doors. Felix got up to go pop his head round the door, once he returned both Lana and Professor Flitwick looked at him with questioning looks.

“It’s Potter again, he was with McGonagall and his Weasley friend, looked a right mess.”

“When doesn’t he?” said Lana as she took a last sip of her tea. “Dunno why they’ve come this way though, the hospital wing is in the other direction.”

“Maybe he’s going to Dumbledore.”

“Yes, well thank you for the tea professor, but we’ve still got another hour of patrol before we can go to bed, so we best be off.” Lana said, getting up.

“Oh it was no problem dear, you two have a nice rest of the night.”

“And you Professor.” And with that Lana and Felix rose from their seats and made their way out the room.

They stayed quiet as they walked around the corridors making sure everything was as it should be. They didn’t run into anyone else as they made their way around the castle, all of the paintings were asleep, it was just the two of them.

“Right, I know that you probably want to avoid this, but we need to talk about it.”

Lana could tell exactly what Felix was going on about. “Do we have to?” She groaned.

“Yes, I have never seen you and Alex go this long without talking to each other, and neither of you will tell me what you're fighting about.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Does it involve me?”

“Kinda.” Lana said timidly. “But not in a way that’s bad, we’d be fighting about this no matter who he was dating.” She supplied seeing the hurt on his face. She took a deep breath and kept talking as they moved. “We’ve been fighting over family stuff, what with everything going on in the outside world, and how the chain of authority is changing around here, I was telling him to be more careful and then he called be hypocritical because of factors that I am not getting into.”

“I see, so it’s a small argument, that you two are now avoiding because you are both too stubborn.”

“Basically.”

“Right, well, just promise me you guys will talk it out over Christmas, he misses you, even if he is too stubborn to admit it.”

“Fine, but he’ll make it very difficult, he’s like that.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, now it’s late and we have to actually go to lessons tomorrow so let’s go to bed.” He smiled at her.

“Yeah,” Lana yawned, “let’s.”

The next morning Lana was woken by Ava shaking her shoulder quite violently.

“C’mon Lan, you’re going to miss breakfast.”

“What?” Lana said, sitting up groggily. She checked the clock and saw that Ava was right, she needed to get up and fast. “Merlin, I was on patrol last night, but I learnt that Flitwick hates Umbridge as much as we do.”

“Who doesn’t?” Piped up Lex.

As Lana was rushing around the room trying to get herself ready Nova came trotting into the room, soaked through with a dead bird in his mouth. “Great, just what I need this morning.” Lana sighed and tied her mess of, something that should resemble curly hair, into a bun. Nova dropped the bird at her feat and then curled up on her bed.

“No absolutely not.” Said Lana forcefully she threw her bag over her shoulder and picked Nova up. She held him as far away from her as possible. “Can someone grab that bird?”

Lana dropped Nova onto the sofa by the fire and then held her hand out for someone to drop the dead bird onto. Lana’s morning could not get any worse. Once the dead bird had been put in some bushes just outside the main doors, Lana made her way into the great hall in the hopes of eating some form of breakfast and seeing George before lessons started as they didn’t have any crossovers during the day. But as she sat down with her friends and began to put scrambled eggs on her plate, she noticed a distinct lack of fiery red hair, she couldn’t see either twins, or Ron, or Ginny, but she could see Umbridge, and she seemed to be on the war path.

She marched up the room with Hermione Granger at her heals. She was surveying the room looking for someone, and she seemed to have found them. She made her way over to where Lana was finishing her last mouthful of eggs. She grabbed Lana by the shoulder and pulled her out of her chair. They were moving so fast, Lana barely had time to grab her bag. She and Hermione followed Umbridge to her office, both in silent agreement to not ask questions whilst she was in this state.

They reached the vile pink room, Umbridge didn’t offer them a seat nor did she take one herself, she turned to them nostrils flaring.

“So…?” Her voice was an angry whisper, she paused for a moment in the hopes that Hermione and Lana would answer this vague question instantly. When they didn’t, she continued getting angrier with the minute. “Where are they?” She shouted this with such force that Lana felt herself putting her arm in front of Hermione to protect her.

“I’m sorry Professor, where are who?” Lana asked, although she had a strong idea of who Umbridge was talking about.

“The Weasleys and Potter.” She had gone back to her steady, but still furious tone of voice. “They disappeared last night and if anyone is to know where they are it’s you two.” The bell for lessons went. Lana wasn't sure what it was, probably the fear, but it seemed to ring painfully in her ears. 

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything, I was on patrol last night and I saw nothing out of the ordinary.” This technically wasn’t a lie, it had been Felix who had seen Harry being rushed to Dumbledore.

“I am going to get this out of you two, whatever it takes.” Umbridge was reaching for her wand, Lana’s instincts kicked in and she fully shielded Hermione whilst pulling the two of them backwards.

There was a knock on the door. Umbridge hastily put her wand away to hide how angry she had gotten. Part of Lana wanted to stay exactly how she was, so that whoever walked in could still see that she and Hermione had been fearing attack, but she still moved to stand next to Hermione, she didn’t want to get Umbridge fired, she would never hear the end of it with her parents. Umbridge called for the person to come in and in walked Dumbledore, Lana felt herself relax, Dumbledore would explain everything.

“Is everything alright Dolores?”

“Where are they?”

Dumbledore’s calmness juxtaposed Umbridge’s fury beautifully, Lana was having to hold in fits of giggles as Umbridge became more dishevelled.

“Where are who, Dolores? Hogwarts had hundreds of students.” Lana could tell that Dumbledore knew exactly what he was doing and taking great pleasure in doing it.

“Potter and that lot, they were out of bed last night, Minerva would not give me a straight answer as to why and now they are nowhere to be seen this morning.” To the average eye it would seem very strange that Umbridge was getting so riled up about a small group of students leaving a day before the Christmas holidays. However, Lana could see right through this, Dumbledore had done this right under her nose, this was making her realise that she would never have full control until Dumbledore was out of the picture.

“There has been an incident that has affected the Weasley family and Harry personally, I gave them my permission to leave early to visit a family member in StMungos, and that is all that I wish to disclose about the situation.” Dumbledore said in a calm but firm tone.

“Now, these students need to get to their lessons as OWL and NEWT students.” Dumbledore nodded his head to the door, Lana and Hermione made their way out of the office.

Once Dumbledore had left the office and closed the door behind him Lana and Hermione began to bombard him with questions. Dumbledore raised his hands for them to be quiet.

“I will start by saying that everyone is alright, Mr Weasley was injured in a line of work, but he is now recovering in StMungos.”

“How did he get hurt?” It was the first time Hermione had spoken; her voice was shaky but she seemed alright.

“I will tell you in due course Miss Granger, but Miss Rowle I am sure you have heard this multiple times, but I am afraid I cannot tell you what has happened, all things considered.” Dumbledore looked Lana directly in the eyes, he had that sort of twinkle in his eyes that told Lana that he was trying to communicate something with her. It took Lana a couple of seconds but she figured out what he was trying to say to her, but she got there. He was setting up the perfect opportunity for her to plant some suspicion in Hermione, who would almost definitely pass it on to everyone else.

“Of course.” She began with a bitter tone. “It’s always ‘all things considered’” Lana made a subtle glance towards Hermione and saw that the plan was working, she turned her attention back to Dumbledore. “Just say Death Eater parents, I hate it when people aren’t to the point.” And with that Lana turned around and left.

Because she had been dragged all the way to Umbridge’s office Lana now found herself left with a ten minute walk to Alchemy. If there was one thing Lana now hated, it was being alone. When she was alone, all of those thoughts that made up the pit in her stomach pushed their way to the front of her brain, and she had to go over it all again. She was able to push most of her problems back down her chain of thoughts, but there was one thing that always stuck with her.

It was Alex’s parting words at the end of their fight, “Tom wouldn’t want this.” Those four words swilled around her head constantly, they were in her nightmares, except it wasn’t Alex saying them, it was always Tom, bloody, and angry. He would scream at her for what felt like hours before she was finally able to pull herself awake. She hadn’t told anyone at Hogwarts about this, she couldn’t tell anyone except George and she didn’t want to worry him, she could already see this eating him alive, he was as scared as she was, if not more. She had told Sirius, but it was difficult to communicate with him nowadays, Umbridge was reading everyone’s post. Lana and Sirius had taken to passing their letters to each other via Dumbledore as he was the only one not being checked, this meant that there was often a bit of a delay when they communicated.

Sirius had suggested that Lana come spend a day at his house, so that they could talk this over in person, his house is normally very empty so it would be some nice company for him. Lana had said that she would, but now she wasn’t so sure, if something had happened that left Mr Weasley in hospital in London it was very likely that they would be staying in London for the holidays. Lana wouldn’t get the chance to be alone with Sirius to talk this out.

For some reason she didn’t want Dumbledore to know about all this, he knew something was bothering her, but she had been able to block him getting to that part of her brain in their occlumency lessons. Lana just looked at Dumbledore and Sirius differently, she viewed Dumbledore as more of a boss than someone she would ever go to for comfort. Sirius on the other hand was like one of those cool uncles that you needed in your life, he would talk to her about her normal problems as well as just all of the stuff about the war. It was refreshing to have someone know about everything that was both fun and good at advice.

She had made it to Alchemy, the class was already midway through what seemed to be a somewhat fun Alchemy quiz.

“Ah, Mis Rowle, Dumbledore did warn me that you might be a bit late today,” of course he did Lana thought, “well no matter, we’re having an end of term quiz, so why don’t you join Mr Cartwright as team.”

Lana obliged and sat down next to Felix, she looked over the worksheet and then back to the blackboard behind Professor Philpot that still had the first round of questions on. She noticed that Felix’s answer to question five was wrong, she crossed it out and put the right answer in.

“I wasn’t sure about that one, I knew it was either that or what I’ve put.” Lana nodded to Felix then went back to looking at the paper, hoping he wouldn’t ask her…

“What was all that about?”

“Oh, nothing, just something with Umbridge.”

Lana had made it to break, she found her friends in the library curled up in the arm chairs talking. As she slipped into a seat that they had left open for her she began to pick up on what they were saying.

“They haven’t been in any lessons all morning.”

“Apparently, none of the Weasleys or Harry have been seen all day.”

“They’re not here.” Lana piped up quietly, she was so tired now, everything that had happened this morning had taken all the energy she had mustered up and stamped on her. What had happened to their dad? Was it something for the order? How were the rest of them? Sure he was okay now, but how long had they gone without knowing whether or not their dad was going to live?

“What d’you mean?”

“They left at some point last night, something's happened that put their dad in the hospital.” Lana sighed.

“Really?”

“What was it?”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, and I don’t know, I didn’t know anything until Umbridge pulled me and Granger to ask us where they had gone.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mandy was looking at her with concern etched all over her face.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be, I was in blissful ignorance until this morning, and I don’t know anything, Dumbledore wouldn’t tell me anything, he told Granger and not me” Lana sat up a bit in her chair “but then again, when does anyone tell me anything nowadays?”

Lana decided that she just wanted to be alone for the rest of the day. She got on with her work quietly and went to the kitchens for lunch and dinner, she knew that by hiding from them she was only going to make her friends more worried, but she needed to start distancing herself, she had an inkling that her relationships with them were going to change drastically once she got back from Christmas. She wanted to be able to talk to Alex so much right now, but every time she tried to catch his eye in the corridors, he avoided looking in her direction.

Lana waited for the rest of her dormmates to go to dinner before she went up to pack her bags. As she sat on the floor folding up her clothes and making sure that everyone’s presents were in their trunks ready to be opened on Christmas, she felt her eyes starting well. She took two shaky but deep breaths and continued to pack. She wasn’t even sure why she was crying, she was just so tired, tired of having to shut everyone she cared about out, tired of having to dance circles around everyone to make sure that this complicated plan worked. But she guessed the main thing that stopped her from keeping her head above water was that it was going to get so much worse.


	38. Christmas Time

It was Christmas Morning and the Rowles were all sat in comfortable arm chairs in a cosy hospital room. The elderly ward was stationed a bit further away from the chaos of the main hospital, but if you left the door open you could just about make out the quiet conversations of people who’ve stopped for tea breaks.

Greta Rowle was withering in her age, she had lost her husband five years ago and her sister five years before that. Her sons had decided to move her into StMungos after the death of her husband, she was just to weak to be left alone and they didn’t like the idea of her having to live in her manor with out him there, even if she was being cared for.

Greta didn’t mind, she had a room all to herself and all of the healers were extremely nice, and even though her memories were starting to fade, and her body was starting to shut down, she could always recognise her family. They were spread all around her room right now, her elder boy was looking at his paper work, Greta knew that he had always been married to his work, even if she couldn’t remember what he did. Her youngest was holding hands with his wife, they weren’t really saying much, but they seemed to be having a silent conversation as they looked down at their daughter, who was reading one of her textbooks.

Greta loved her grandchildren, the girl was a gorgeous young woman who filled Greta’s chest with pride, she was a Triwizard winner Greta knew that much, it was hard to forget things like that, especially when your healers won’t stop bringing it up. She was named after Greta’s mother, Alana had always been such a beautiful name and fit the girl excellently, she had always been so loving, Greta could remember her bringing butterflies and birds into her house from the gardens and how she would sit on the sofas and gently pet the elderly dog that Greta couldn’t remember the name of. Greta knew that Alana would grow up to be an amazing wife and a caring mother, she knew that Alana would amount to so much, even if she wouldn’t be there to see it.

Greta loved nothing more than to look at her grandson, who was the spitting image of her husband, he had his eyes, his smile, and his love for Quidditch. He reminded her of him so much these days, he looked like the boy she had met on a beach many years ago, the one who had then taken her down to the beach and into the water for the rest of the summer, the boy who had written to her everyday once they had gone back to their schools. The boy she had lost to Grindelwald, and the boy she had found again.

Lana was curled up in an armchair watching her grandmother of the rim of her book. Alex was playing with the miniature model of Krum that Lana had gotten him from Christmas. Lana and Alex were back on speaking terms, although Lana was pretty sure that he had only done it for their parents’ sake, neither of them had said a word about the argument and conversations still held a slight air of stiffness.

They hadn’t been planning to visit Greta on Christmas day, they were probably going to wait until the new year, but a little while after all of them were settled into Ajax’s house they got an owl informing them that it was very likely that Greta would not make it to the new year. Both of Lana’s parents and Ajax had planned to work up until Christmas day, and that couldn’t change, so this was the earliest that they had been able to make it out. Ajax still had to bring work with him.

Greta had always been Lana’s favourite grandparent, she was strict and tough but still loving, she had far too many stories to count, and a kind soul. Lana loved to hear stories about her Grandfather, he had been a fierce warrior and a fine Auror. He was the pride of the Rowle family.

The room was quiet, no one wanted to talk. They were all waiting, for what they didn’t want to come. Gentle light shone through the sheer curtains, and the soft smell of lavender filtered through the room. Lana felt a hand place itself on her shoulder and looked up to see her dad who gestured to the bed in the centre of the room. 

Greta shifted in her bed and indicated for Lana to come closer. Lana obliged, she readjusted the pillows so Great could sit up and then placed herself on Greta’s left side. She held a hand out and Lana took it.

“I have a little parting gift for you.” The words were raspy and made tears swell up in Lana’s eyes. Greta noticed this. “Oh, toughen up.” Lana let out a little laugh. Greta’s voice was stronger now. “I won’t give it you until you promise that you would be all mopey about this, I’ve had my time, and you’ve got much better things to be doing with yours.”

Lana nodded quietly; Greta reached for something on her bedside table, it seemed to be a small, deep blue, velvet box. She placed in Lana’s hand and curled her fingers around it. The box was soft to the touch and Lana was being really careful with it. It felt ancient and as if Lana was not the first person to have had it passed onto them. She went to open it, but her grandmother stopped her.

“Not in here, it is tradition for this to passed down to the eldest grandchild, without the grandparent present.” Lana nodded and gently put the box in the pocket of her robes. “I have so many things to remember your grandfather by, and I want you to remember both of us through these, as you share them with someone special.”

Lana didn’t really know what this meant, but before she could ask Greta began to cough violently, and she and Alex were gently encouraged to leave the room and go find some tea.

As they walked down the short corridor to the nearest drink station Lana noticed that Alex was staring at the pocket that held the box.

“I’ll open it once we’ve got our tea.” She told him.

But as they reached the drink station all thoughts about the box were forgotten as they were met with a sight that they should’ve expected. The Weasleys, but it wasn’t all of them, just the twins and Bill. They hadn’t spotted Lana or Alex yet, they seemed to be laughing at something. Lana did not know what had happened, she had tried to write to Sirius but had not gotten an answer, she had been too scared to write to any of the Weasley’s, but opting to wait for one of them to write to her had proven a bad idea when she didn’t hear anything for all of the holidays so far.

Lana slipped over to the drink tray and began to pour two cups of tea, she stirred the milk in and added a teaspoon of sugar for Alex, who had found a table with a sofa to sit on. She made her way over to him putting the cups on the table, Alex hadn’t noticed the Weasleys yet. So naturally he had no idea what was taking his sister’s attention away from tea that she had just accidently spilt over the table.

“What are you looking at?”

Lana turned to him looking rather flustered, she cleaned the tea that had dripped over the edge of the cups with her wand and then cocked her head in the direction of the Weasleys. Alex looked over to them and then gave her a look of understanding.

“Why don’t you go talk to them?”

“They’ve been through some stuff, they don’t need to see me.” She said sitting down on the sofa. 

At that moment all three of them burst out laughing at something Bill had said.

“Yeah,” Alex said sarcastically looking over to them, “they look really torn up.”

Lana took a sip of her tea and heard someone exclaim behind her. “Lana! Alex! I didn’t know you two were here.” This made the Weasleys look up, Lana and George made eye contact, but she turned to face the person who had called after her. It was Kat’s mother, she was in her green healer robes and holding a clip board.

“Hiya Sarah, I didn’t know you’d be working today.” Alex called as he and Lana made their way over to her.

“Yeah, I wasn’t to happy about it, but we were understaffed as it is.”

Lana stood there awkwardly, looking back to where the Weasleys were now watching to them. Alex seemed to notice this and began talking to Sarah in a manner that made it easy for Lana to slip away. She made her way back to the small café area, and was met with two arms pulling her into a tight hug. She wrapped her arms around Georges stomach and nestled her head into the cape of his neck.

“What are you doing here? Is everything alright.” His voice was soft in her ear and she was pretty sure that only she could hear it.

“Everything is fine, my grandmother lives in the elderly ward that’s all.” She said pulling away from him, but staying in a loose embrace. She smiled at Fred over George’s shoulder, who smiled back.

George lead the both of them back to the seats and they all sat and began to talk, the conversation seemed very light, they were talking about something that had happened in the morning.

“I mean stitches,” said Bill through fits of laughter, “what was he thinking?”

“Well, stiches have been a massive debate withing that magical medical community.” Lana piped up.

Bill stared at her incredulously but she continued. “It was a whole case study a few years back, but they were proven useless, because all wounds that actually took to the stiches could easily be sealed up by magic and any wound that cannot be instantly healed tends to reject them, although testing with them is still encouraged, especially with trainees, it helps them learn.”

Lana went back to her tea, but Bill was still staring at her.

“I should explain that Lana’s is training to be a healer,” George explained, “and doesn’t understand that all the stuff she studies isn’t common knowledge.”

“Right sorry.” Lana looked over to see Alex was still talking to Kat’s mum.

“So how much do you know Lan?” Fred asked, and Lana noticed as Bill stepped on his foot.

“Not much, but I do know that you guys aren’t allowed to tell me anything else, Dumbledore made that quite clear.”

“Wait what happened?” Fred looked very intregiued. 

Lana began to explain the whole story, how she hadn’t seen them at breakfast, how Umbridge had dragged her and Hermione away for questioning, all three of them burst out laughing when she explained how Dumbledore had messed with her. “And then Dumbledore told us that something had happened with your dad, but he wouldn’t elaborate with me around, he told Hermione everything naturally, but I have to be kept in the dark, just in case.”

“Lana, you must understand that its important you don’t know things, it’s for everyone’s safety, including your own, especially your own.” Bill was obviously trying to be the voice of reason within the family, and Lana knew that she was going to have to speak against it.

“Well not really, they’ll torture me for information regardless, the only difference is if I actually have anything to tell them,” all three of them were looking at her shocked, but Lana could tell that George was faking it. “I don’t mind not being told anything, but don’t act like its for my own good.” She looked down at her empty teacup and rose from her seat. “I should go.”

As she made her way back to her grandmother’s room, Lana heard George call after her, she checked to see if the corridor was empty, once she was sure it was, she smiled at him warmly. He pulled her into a kiss and wrapped his arms around her lower back.

“Good show.” He joked.

“Why thank you, I’ve got to get the practice in, start dropping hints.” She let out an empty laugh at her situation and felt George’s grip on her tighten.

“So, how much do you actually know?”

“I actually wasn’t lying about Dumbledore not telling me anything, but I think he would’ve, but he just didn’t get the time, what with it being the last day of term.”

“Right so basically, do you know about the thing You-Know-Who is after?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what it is, but I know he really wants it.”

“Yeah, well, dad was guarding it and that big snake attacked him, he’s doing a lot better now, but it was all a bit scary at the time.”

“I’ll bet.” Lana then had a thought. “Hey, when are you guys planning to visit your dad again?”

“I think in a few days.”

“And when you guys go out Sirius is the only one at home?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well we had talked about how I need to go over and talk a few things out with him, and I might still do that when you guys are out.”

“Right, that make sense, I think we next coming here about midday on Wednesday.”

“Awesome thanks.”

The distant sound of Mrs Weasley called George back to the rest of the family. They exchanged a last hug and he made his way down the corridor.

*

At around eleven o’clock on Wednesday Lana was putting a cloak over her clothes as she would have to walk down the snowy grounds of Ajax’s place to apparate. She had told her parents that she was running an errand in London, she had told them that she needed some more potions ingredients. Which technically wasn’t false, she was grabbing some more potions ingredients in Diagon Alley, she was just stopping off at Sirius’s place afterwards. Lana looked over to the dresser, the box was still sitting there unopened, Greta was still with them, but they knew that it was any day now. Lana made her way down the stairs with a muggle tote bag she had found whilst traveling a few years back, it had a beautiful image of the moon on it, she hid it under her cloak so her parents wouldn’t see it and made her way towards the main doors. As she stepped out into the gusting wind, she called back to let people know that she was leaving but no-one answered.

Diagon Alley was quiet, Lana made her way down the cobblestone streets stopping in a few shops as she went, she spent most of her time just looking around, it took her a little while to find all of her potions ingredients as she had to go into two different shops to find them all. Once she was full stocked up, Lana began to think about the place Sirius had told her to apparate to. He had described a small kitchen to her and as she thought about it she felt the air around her tighten and the all too familiar sensation of being pulled through an extremely tight hole greeted Lana for only a second before she found herself in the kitchen that had been described.

Sirius was sat at an old wooden table in the centre of the room. He was drinking out of a coffee mug and looked up at the slight popping noise that indicated Lana’s arrival. He smiled at her in a disbelieving way, and then got up to give her a hug.

Once they were all settled down both with steaming cups of tea, they began to have a casual conversation about Lana’s school life and how she and Alex was still coming off their argument when Sirius asked a question that threw Lana off guard.

“So, how’d you know that you’d be alone today?”

Lana began to stumble over some sort of excuse and Sirius began to laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m well aware about your little informant, and I won’t snitch, I’m having far too much fun freaking him out about it.”

Lana let herself relax, she should’ve known that Sirius would’ve been cool about all this, he probably understood more than anyone the need to have someone like that to be able to talk to and find comfort in, when things were rough.

“So, nightmares?” Sirius was now pottering around the kitchen.

“Right, nightmares.” Lana then began to dive into a deep explanation of the dreams she had been having, how Tom would stand over her and scream that he didn’t want this for her. How sometimes blood would drip off him and fall onto her, how this had all stemmed from a passing comment Alex had made.

“Right, I see.” Sirius stood over her and placed a hand on her shoulder as he figured out what to say next. “Well what I want you to think about is, yes, Tom wouldn’t like the idea of you being a death eater, but at the same time, you’re not a death eater, are you?”

“No, I guess I’m not, I never really thought about it that way.”

“And that’s why you come to me.”

Lana felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest, she just sometimes forgot that she wasn’t actually giving into Voldemort, that she was actually doing some good, even if she had been able to do much yet.

The rest of the conversations that they were having were very relaxed they only stopped when they heard the sound of the Weasleys arriving back, they rushed their goodbyes and Lana disapparated back to the main gates of Ajax’s house. She made her way up the grounds and through the doors.

Once she was in the main sitting room, she could tell that something was wrong, the rest of her family were all sat around the sofas looking solemn. Lana’s mother was the first to notice her she turned to her with a look that Lana instantly understood.

*

Wizarding funerals had always happened very quickly after the person’s death. It was Friday evening and Lana was sat in black dress robes on her bed fiddling with the little box that Greta had given her, she still hadn’t opened it. It had been forgetfulness at first, but now it was just fear. This was her last tie to her grandmother; it was as if whatever was in that box were her last words.

Lana had never been fond of funerals, they were always so tear inducing, everyone cried far more than Greta would have wanted. But they all found comfort in knowing that she would have scoffed at them and told them to grow a spine. Lana’s face still had tear tracks as she opened the box.

It had a white silk interior and sat on the cushioned bottom of the box were two golden rings, Lana examined them for a minute, they had small diamonds spiralling around them and they seemed to be catered to a man and a woman. It took Lana a couple of second but once she realised what they were she felt more silent tears fall down her cheeks. She had seen them her entire life, been picked up by strong hands that bore them constantly. They were in photobooks and her father’s memory.

They were wedding rings.

Lana looked at the rings and thought about a photo that sat on the mantle piece, it was of her grandparents wedding, they were both smiling at the camera with black and white grins, before leaning in and kissing each other as newlyweds. Her grandmother looked beautiful in that photo, and her grandfather looked so much like Alex it was actually scary.

Lana picked up her grandmother’s ring and looked at it, it seemed to big for her finger, but as she slipped it on, she felt it magically close around her finger so that it fit her perfectly.

She cried for a bit longer.

But she began to remember the promise she had made, about how she wasn’t going to be mopey. She slipped the ring off her hand and placed it back into its box. She began to scavenge the house for a golden necklace chain. She found one in the many storage rooms; it had a charm for an old quidditch team that Lana knew her dad had bought on a dare. She took the charm off and put it back in one of the many boxes before she went back to her room.

She slipped the rings onto the chain and vowed to herself that she would not take it off until she was using them when she got married.


	39. The Meeting

It was late in the evening and a lot had changed. Nineteen-ninety-five hand boomed into nineteen-ninety-six in a very extravagant party thrown by Ajax in which Lana had seen her parents more drunk than she had ever wanted to. It had been a breath of fresh air compared to Lana’s last few weeks, she had definitely gotten drunk according to Alex. She had woken up to a pounding headache and no memory of anything after counting down to midnight.

She was finishing up an astronomy essay in her room when there was a knock at her door.

“Come in.” She called without looking up from her essay. The sound of heels indicated that her mother had walked into the room. 

“He’s here, we are having a meeting, he wants you there, he says he has an important role for you.”

Lana froze in her seat, her quill dropped to the table and looked up to her mum. Her eyes were filled with pride and determination, she was clearly proud that her daughter was being given special tasks by the Dark Lord. She began to make her way to the wardrobe in the room Lana was staying in.

“Now, they are starting out with the formalities, so that gives us time to get you changed, you can’t face the Dark Lord looking like that.” She gestured to the pyjamas that Lana was wearing and the messy plait she had haphazardly pulled her hair into. Lana watched as her mother pulled out a long black slip dress and a corset, her skin began to crawl at the idea of having those clothes on her. However, she wasn’t one to argue in times like these. She took off her comfy bed clothes and put her arms up to let her mother place the corset on over her head, she then stood very still as a black ribbon was weaved through the many holes of the garment. Once it had been fully tied and her waist synched Lana slipped her feet into the dress and pulled it up over her body. It came a little above her knees and had laced loose sleeves that clearly showed her deep black mark.

Lana was then forcefully shoved into a chair on a vanity and Maureen began to fiddle with the messy plaits, painfully pulling apart the hair. She began to brush it back and muttered an incantation that Lana could not make out. Lana watched as her mother placed her wand under her hair and began to run it through her dark brown locks. It straightened itself out and fell a little below her chest. Once there were no curls left in Lana’s hair, her mother ran a brush through it and pulled it back into a tight low bun. Lana looked at herself in the mirror. She looked too clean, it didn’t feel like her, and if she wasn’t authentic, she would be deemed untrustworthy. She gently ran her fingers gently over her head. She began to slowly pull her front strands of hair out of the bun so they fell loosely around her face. Her mother who had been fiddling with a box of makeup looked up and saw what Lana had done. She walked back over to the vanity make up in hand and held onto the strands from behind Lana, who was now shaking slightly expecting to be scolded.

“You know, you could have those strands a different colour to the rest of your head.”

Lana relaxed and began to process that statement. “What? No.” She laughed at the idea of any of her hair not being the deep brown that it was currently. Her mother also let out a gentle laugh.

“Nothing drastic, maybe just a lighter brown, or even a silver.”

“Like what Sissy’s got?” Lana thought of Narcissa Malfoy and how her hair had silver underlayers.

“Exactly.”

The makeup didn’t take long, and soon enough Lana was walking to the main dining hall in ridiculously high heels. They reached the double doors of the room and her mother knocked. No one answered, instead the doors opened of their own accord. The Death Eaters were all sat around Ajax’s grand table in ornate wooden chairs with serpent carvings. Above them sat a large chandelier, the small diamonds reflected the light around the room that had small clusters of candles in the dimly lit corners and the dim remains of what had been a beautiful sunset making their way through the open windows. Lana scanned the table, she saw Yaxley, one of her father’s colleagues, sitting next to him was her father who looked very official in some deep navy robes. Lucious Malfoy was a few seats down looking very pleased with himself.

At the head of the table was the Dark Lord, he was listening intently to a report one of his followers was making, Lana could not make much of it out but it seemed to be about the Death Eaters that were in Azkaban. Sat next to him was Ajax, who was being treated as an esteemed guest but Lana could tell by his expression that he was more of a prisoner. She realised that they were all here to try and get Ajax on their side, he was very powerful in the wizarding world, with lots of international connections. Lana also knew that Voldemort saw the fact that he had been unable to collect Ajax last time as one of his bigger failures in the last wizarding war. There were three empty seats, her mother moved to fill one of them. The other two were very strategically placed, one at the end of the table, directly facing the Dark Lord and the other at his right side directly opposite Ajax. Lana wasn’t sure which one to take, she also did not want to just stand hopelessly and have everyone stare at her.

Luckily at that moment Voldemort looked up and saw her. He began to speak in his low raspy voice that still sent shivers down Lana’s spine.

“Ah, Alana welcome, we saved you a seat.” He gestured to the seat opposite Ajax. Lana walked slowly over, this didn’t seem right, why would she be seated that close to him? It felt like a trap. She sat down and Voldemort turned to face her.

“Now, Alana, you have been spending the majority of your time with those mudbloods and blood traitors, do you know anything about their plans.” As he said this he moved his hand so that one of the many wine glasses on a tray near the back wall floated its way over and gently placed itself in front of Lana. She took a sip of it and relished in the taste, she had always loved wine.

“No, I don’t.” She said and she began to fiddle with the rings that were still hanging from the chain around her neck. “They don’t trust me, and make a point of not telling me anything, it’s almost as if they want me to turn.” She took another sip of her wine. “They’re making it very easy.”

Voldemort let out a lew laugh. “Yes, Dumbledore has never been good at hiding his clear prejudice and favouritism, I can remember when I was at Hogwarts, he would not trust me even though I was a top student and prefect, he always favoured the halfbreed.”

He finally moved his red slits from Lana’s face and let them scan along the table at the other death eaters. “You will all see that we have a guest.” They all looked to Ajax who was sitting very stiffly, a prisoner in his own home. “Ajax, everyone in this room wants you to join us.” Lana didn’t, she wanted him to get as far away from here and take Alex with him. “You would be so useful to us Ajax and you must know that I can be very persuasive.” With a lazy flick of his wand Voldemort sent a small dagger that had been on the table next to him flying towards Ajax’s neck. The tip of the dagger just brushed his skin and if he were to move suddenly, it would be over. Ajax was staying surprisingly cool in this whole situation, he lifted his chin slowly so that the dagger sat more comfortably on his neck. He didn’t say anything. Voldemort’s face twisted into an expression of anger and he began to speak in a tongue that Lana could not understand, it was a low hissing that made her sit rigid in her seat.

The doors opened again and Lana heard a large body make its way across the floor the being came onto the table and Lana sucked in a breath. It was a snake, a large, dark snake. It made its way along the table, snapping at the hand of death eaters who seemed too comfortable. Lana quickly moved hers to her lap. The snake weaved its way over to Ajax and raised itself so that their heads were level. Lana looked to Ajax, who was starting to waver, his eyes were now filled with fear. Lana also noticed that he was glancing over to the vacant seat, like it was playing a factor in his decision. It could’ve only been seconds before he reacted, but to Lana it felt like hours.

“Fine,” he breathed, “I’ll join you, I’ll do whatever you want, just please don’t hurt me.” He was trying to keep his voice as calm as possible but the fear was seeping into the sound. With a lazy hiss from Voldemort, the snake dropped and slid off the table to his feet. Voldemort let the dagger find its way back to him, but not before it had made a deep cut onto Ajax’s cheek. Deep scarlet blood began to drip down his face but he ignored it. Lana was frozen with fear, Ajax had been her last hope for Alex's freedom. He sat up straight and turned to face the Dark Lord in what Lana knew to be his business mode.

“I have one other condition.” He said firmly.

“And what would that be?”

“That chair,” he gestured to the only empty chair at the end of the table, “I know you’re saving it for Alexander, and I want it to stay empty, he’s too young, too naïve.” He then subtly turned to Lana and made direct eye contact with her, before turning back to Voldemort, Lana knew what it meant, she saw what he was doing and was going to do everything in her power to make sure it worked. 

“And what would suggest I do with him?”

“Leave him alone, he would not be a trustworthy Death Eater, he is better being kept in the dark, as long as you leave him alone, he will live out his life, get a job, have some pureblood kids and never be a problem for you.”

“What do you think of this?” He was looking at her now.

“I agree, you have me as a loyal follower, Alex is not the type to get involved in any of this, he will be much less of a wild card if you leave him alone.” She said plainly. Hoping he’d believe her. Voldemort then looked to both of her parents who nodded.

“I see, well then, I will listen to your judgement.”

Lana had to hold back her sigh of relief, this wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was a start, a safety net, and with any luck this war would end soon enough that Alex can go back to the life he had planned for.

Voldemort grabbed onto Ajax’s wrist and pulled his arm towards him. “As for you, I think we should not wait any longer.” He dug his wand into Ajax’s forearm and it lit up so bright you could see his veins. Lana knew the pain that the mark caused and winced as Ajax bit his lip so he wouldn’t cry out. And all of a sudden, she was back in the graveyard with cold hands clenched around her wrist and daggers in her forearm. The masks were all surrounding her again, it was so cold and claustrophobic, she was screaming but no sound came out.

“There, welcome to our ranks Ajax Rowle.” Lana was back in the dining hall, or she guessed that she had never left. There was a sharp pain in her palms and she looked down to see her fists clenched so tightly that she had drawn blood. “Now, I just need to tie up one last loose end.”

Lana looked back up to see Voldemort looking directly at her again, he had a look that Lana knew meant that this was what she had been called to the meeting for. All of a sudden, the dagger was in the air and Lana felt a sharp pain across her left cheek and a warmth began to slip down her face but before she could concentrate on her face the dagger then ran across her fingers, they were still connected to her hands, but bleeding.

“There we are,” Lana didn’t flinch, she didn’t cry, she just defiantly looked him in the eyes and let the blood drip onto her dress. “We need to make it look convincing, don’t we?”

He knew what he was doing, there was no need for it, she was doing a very good job at placing doubt into people. He just took pleasure in seeing her bleed. And she was not going to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. “Now then, for our final point of order, the dementors have agreed to cooperate, it will take us a few months to get the plan in place but with their help our brothers and sisters should be joining us soon.” Lana had to hide her horror, there was going to be an Azkaban breakout with the dementors help, and there was nothing she could do. She was definitely going to warn Dumbledore, but he had no jurisdiction in that area. Fudge wouldn’t give him the time of day. They were going to have to watch it all unfold powerless. “Yaxley, Rowles, you will need to do everything you can to smooth things over once it has happened, whisper in the Minister’s ear about Sirius Black. He will need someone to blame, and if you give him one, the heat will be off you.” And with that the Death Eaters all began to rise from their seats and out of the doors. Lana had the weight of this breakout on her shoulders, but it could wait, she needed to find Alex. She ran as subtly as she could up to the room he was staying in, and pounded on the door, opening it before Alex could answer.

“Lana, what was all that about? Are you bleeding?”

“Alex I need you to listen to me very carefully, I know this situation isn’t perfect but for the time being, I need you to keep to yourself, stay quiet and whatever you do, don’t join whatever establishment Dumbledore has set up to fight Voldemort.” Lana looked at him pleadingly and luckily, he seemed to understand the magnitude of the situation.

“Fine, but why?”

“He wanted to brand you, like he branded me.” Alex's face formed into an expression of horror. “Ajax and I managed to negotiate it down to you just living like the perfect pureblood but not getting involved in the war.”

“What? Marry a woman, pop out some kids and get a boring ministry job?” Alex looked scared, but like he was listening.

“Maybe, it will depend on how this war turns out.” She looked around the room to make sure that there was no way of anyone listening to her. “With any luck this will all be over and you get right back to where you left off, but for now just focus on Hogwarts and maybe get a pureblood girlfriend.”

“And what about you?”

“I will be doing the exact same, except I couldn't escape the mark, I’ll have to do some dirty work but I’m going to try and keep my hands as clean as possible.” She watched Alex’s face as he processed all of this and saw as the tears began to build in his eyes. She sat down next to him and wrapped her arms around him and began to shush him gently. “I know this isn’t what you wanted, trust me, it’s not what I want, but we have to do this for our own safety.” He let out a last sob before sniffling a bit and looking at her, he scanned over the cuts on her face and hands.

“What’d he do that for?”

“Because he could, he enjoys others' fear and pain, but said it would make my turn more convincing.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been giving you such a hard time, you don’t have a choice and you were just looking out for me.”

“It’s fine, this is a hard time for all of us, but all things considered, we’ve made it out of this pretty okay.”

“Yeah, we have.” Lana could tell that they were both thinking about Tom.

“Right I think I’m going to get cleaned up and go to bed.” She said getting up.

It didn’t take long for her to get back into her pyjamas, the wounds took some time though, they just would heal, no matter how much she tried. The blade of the dagger must’ve been magical. She was able to find some magic plasters to put over them and pleaded to the stars that they wouldn’t scar. As she made her way down the corridors with Nova in her arms, she found herself going back into Alex’s room. She slipped through the door. Alex was sitting in his bed, reading. She made her way under the covers and let Nova curl up on his lap. 

“Lan?” Lana hummed to tell him she was listening.

“What are we going to do about Felix and George?”

“Well, I’m sure that if you just told Felix what was happening, he will understand and you can go back to him if and when this all ends, as for me I don’t think I’ll be that lucky.” But she was going to be that lucky, because she knew deep down, that no matter what happened with this war it was very likely that he would be waiting for her on the other side.


	40. Coming Back

It was the Sunday before the first day back, the majority of the students were all taking the train back to the castle, some would take the night bus, and some had apparated if they could. Lana and Alex had opted to do this to save time, with Lana apparating to Hogsmeade station and Alex clinging to her arm.

Lana was once again sat in a comfy armchair at Dumbledore’s desk as he paced behind it, she had pretty much gone there the second she was able to shake Alex off. She had yet to see Ava or Lucy and the rest of her group would be arriving along the day.

“And you’re sure he’s planning a breakout?” Dumbledore asked for what felt like the one hundredth time.

“Yes, I don’t know who, and when, but I’d assume people like the Lestranges and Dolohov, and Rookwood. The big guys from last time.” Dumbledore paced even more furiously. “Are we going to try and stop it? Or is Fudge so incompetent that we’ve got no choice but to watch it happen?”

Dumbledore sighed. “I’m afraid we have no other choice, even if I could convince Cornelius that security needed to be tightened, it would look highly suspicious if I started openly warning about a breakout, Voldemort would know that there is a mole in his ranks.”

Lana sat back in her chair, she felt so helpless. If only she had known about the dementors maybe she could’ve warned Dumbledore that they were considering helping Voldemort and he could’ve stopped it.

“You are not to blame yourself for this.” Dumbledore said sharply.

How did he do that?

“You are also not to tell anyone about this, this information stays between me and you, I do not want to scare anyone when this is out of our hands.” Lana nodded.

“Was anything else of importance mentioned in the meeting?”

“Ajax Rowle had been branded.” Lana said plainly.

“Ah, that is not good for us, he has some powerful connections.”

“It was more by force than by willingness, but he is technically a Death Eater.” She explained. Dumbledore scanned Lana up and down with his deep blue eyes that made it feel like he was looking at her soul.

“I see you have had some injuries over the holidays.” Looked down to her fingers. Her cheek had fully healed but her hands had permanently scarred. A thin silver line made its way across her hands; it spilt in the gaps when her hands were splayed. It was also very difficult to hide, unless she wore gloves every waking moment (which would be even more suspicious than just having the scars out in the open) there would be no way to hide the daggers imprint

“Yes, Voldemort seems to think pain is a good persuasion tactic, which to be fair it is.”

“Lana, you must understand how important the work you are doing is, I know that all of this has been so difficult, but you must power through.”

“I’m fine sir, honestly, things are sort of going okay at the moment.”

Lana spent the rest of her afternoon in greenhouse three, partly because it was a good hiding spot when she didn’t want to be found and also because some of her potion ingredient plants were very close to being ready for harvest and she needed to make sure that they were the best they could be.

It was bitter work, but the satisfaction once it was all over was definitely worth it. She was so engaged with what she was doing that she didn’t notice a certain redhead sneak up behind her.

“You know I never expected to find you here when you didn’t have to be, it's not your typical hangout spot.”

“Yeah well, someone’s gotta take care of these plants.”

“Since when did you go soft on plants? Are you feeling okay?” He placed a hand to her forehead mimicking checking her temperature.

“No, you misunderstand me, I do not care for these plants wellbeing, I just need to make sure that they live long enough for me to be able to harvest them and brew them in a cauldron.”

“So you’re raising them like pigs for slaughter?”

“Exactly.”

Lana trimmed the last dead ends of one particularly difficult plant before making her way over to George and resting her back against his chest. He rested his chin against her head and put his arms around her shoulders.

“George?”

“Yeah?”

“We need to do it.”

“What in here, with all these plants watching?” Lana let out a gentle laugh and playfully pushed her elbow into his stomach.

“No.” She said, turning to face him and wrapping her arms around his neck. “I mean we are going to have to bite the bullet, start fighting, break up.”

“Right.” He pulled away from her, and Lana felt the atmosphere change. She let her hands drop and began to absentmindedly fiddle with her finger as she let George process the changes they were about to endure. The silence was only broken when George noticed the line along Lana’s fingers.

“Hey, what happened to your hands?” He asked, grabbing onto her fingers looking extremely concerned.

“Oh, you-know-who got a bit dagger happy at our last meeting, he’s always loved his fear tactics.” She said looking at them, with almost fondness. “They kinda look like glow in the dark tattoos.”

“I’m sure we could actually figure that out.” He laughed, but Lana noticed that even as she moved her hands he followed the cuts with his eyes.

“So, fighting?” He asked, leaning against the island in the middle of the greenhouse. Lana was pottering around, fiddling at different plants as she moved.

“Yeah, we need to make it believable, I’ve seen enough relationships fall apart, it starts with letting small disagreements blow out of proportion.”

“Right, so like little pet peeves.”

“Exactly, but I should lead all of the arguments, be the one taking it too far, maybe snap at someone whilst we’re fighting around them.” Said Lana, conjuring water with her wand.

“Right, and what’s the next stage?” George was now playing with the leaves of a hanging plant.

“I suppose fighting about what’s happening outside, and trust me when I tell you we will have a lot of material over the next few months.” Lana laughed at the thought of the ‘argument’ they were going to have after the Azkaban breakout. 

“And what would that be.” Lana froze where she stood, Dumbledore had told her not to tell anyone and even though George was sort of an outlier, she couldn’t trust anyone with it but Dumbledore.

“I can’t tell you, but trust me you will know eventually, there’s no way they're covering this one up.”

“Okay… so we’ll have some ammunition coming our way.”

“Definitely.”

*

Their first fight came a few nights later. They decided to make it about the joke shop, all of their group were sat at the Gryffindor table for dinner, Lana had some astronomy charts spread out in front of her and was not engaging in any of the conversation.

“C’mon Lan, you’ve been working all day, give it rest.” Said George lightly.

“I need to get this done.” Lana was supposed to be pointing out all of the mistakes of a finished star chart, it was a question that came up every year on the exams, and it was always worth a lot of marks.

“You do too much.”

“At least I do something.” Lana muttered.

“And what does that mean?”

The whole group had gone silent, looking between Lana and George like they were following a tennis ball in a rather intense match.

“Just, would it kill you to do your homework, or revise.”

“I mean no, but I don’t need to, I’ve got a plan, and that plan doesn’t involve NEWTs, I’d walk out those grand doors right now, but I think mum would kill me.”

“I just think you should get NEWTs as a backup plan.” Lana noted how Venus was too far to the left on the chart.

“And why’s that?”

“Because a joke shop is a risky idea and I can’t see it working.” Lana was beginning to raise her voice. The rest of the group looked shocked. Mandy was looking between the two of them as if she was trying to figure out how to get it to stop. She clearly decided that she needed to intervene.

“Lana, relax, you're too stressed that’s all. Take a break.” She said soothingly.

“Stay out of it, Mandy.” Lana snapped. Now it was Lucy’s turn to get involved she shuffled in her seat indignantly and began to defend Mandy but George cut her off.

“I thought you liked the joke shop idea.”

“Yeah, well maybe I’d prefer you with an actual, stable job.” Lana began to clear up her work.

“What? Like one of those pureblood ministry pricks who your parents try to set you up with?” George was very good at faking anger, his eyes were dark and his tone cold.

“Yeah, maybe.” And with that Lana got up from her seat and took the astronomy work to the library.

Lana sat down in the astronomy section of the library and continued her work with the charts. But it was difficult to focus. She had a sort of knot in her stomach that had formed when she saw Mandy’s face after snapping at her. She had snapped at her friends before you can make it seven years without hitting each other’s buttons, but this one felt different. There was no apology, they had not told her that it was okay and that they understood she was stressed. These were the sacrifices that she was going to have to make. She had always had a drive to do this, but now Lana had a fire burning in her chest, she wanted to ensure that Alex and her friends had the futures they planned for.

She continued to mark all the mistakes in the chart, there were always thirty and she had gotten seventeen. She and George had agreed to meet in this section of the library as it was always practically deserted. She knew it would take him a while to get there, because he needed wait so he could find the perfect time to slip away from the others. But as time dragged on Lana began to get worried, she had time to finish her astronomy and move onto her transfiguration. All the while her brain was doing summersaults, he shouldn’t be taken this long, what if he was now actually angry at her? Had she gone too far? 

Lana was finishing up her third paragraph when he sneaked up behind her and dropped into the chair on her left, grinning.

“What took you so long?” She whispered. “I thought you were actually angry with me for a while.”

“Sorry, but Lucy started a quidditch argument and you know I can never leave those until I’m satisfied that I’ve won.” Lana let out a sigh, before laughing gently.

“Okay, but don’t make a habit of it, I’ve been going crazy in here.” She dipped her quill and turned back to her parchment. She wanted to be somewhat distracted before she asked.

“How were they after I left?”

“Surprisingly okay.” He said, getting comfortable in his chair. “They put it down to stress and you’re your parents putting more pressure on you, they reckon that you got a stern talking to over Christmas and you’re now feeling very conflicted.”

“Right,” Lana was slow as she talked, her eyes were stinging and her words muffled, “that’s great, the exact outcome we wanted.” She let the phrase you are doing this for them repeat in her head as she fiddled with her quill. She was trying her hardest to hide her upset but George saw right through it.

“Hey, look at me,” he nudged her cheek gently so they were face to face, “you’re going to be okay, you’ll come back from this and be a hero.”

“I know,” she sniffed, “it’s just odd, you know?”

“I do.” He said softly, and he shifted a bit so she could rest on his side, with her head on her shoulder.

Lana felt a weight lift off her chest as she nestled herself in his warmth.


	41. It all Comes Crashing Down

The weeks dragged on and Lana was beginning to feel the exam pressure weighing on her. She wasn’t sleeping as much as she should and was always one of the last out of the library. A few weeks into term she was given a blessing in disguise when her parents wrote to her telling her that Quidditch was bringing out unladylike features in her and was distracting her from her studies so they were forcing her to stop. And, although she had grumbled with Alex about it and ranted to her friends, after a few weeks she found that she had more time to get her work done and that she didn’t particularly miss the cold nights that came with practices. She was also not worrying about scores as much which gave her time to worry about other things, like NEWTS and the impending breakout from Azkaban.

She didn’t have to worry too long for one of those events to rear its ugly head.

It was a brisk morning and Lana was coming off a long night duty with a Montague who had replaced her on the quidditch team. She had come into the hall to grab some toast before she would then have to rush off to Alchemy but as she looked along the tables, she saw Harry, Ron Hermione looking at the Daily Prophet with fear in their eyes. She then looked to Dumbledore, he was having a hushed conversation with McGonagall that looked urgent.

It had happened.

She stood in the door for about thirty seconds before realising that she was going to look suspicious. She quietly made her way over the Slytherin table. The news paper sat rolled up in front of her plate, Lana didn’t touch it, she didn’t want to face reality just yet. Once some hash browns and a couple of slices of toast had made their way into Lana’s system, she was up out of her seat and on her way to alchemy.

She was one of the first in the classroom, it was quiet and rather cold. Her brain was going in all different directions, her thoughts were so loud. It had happened. Death Eaters were roaming the streets once more. This was it, she couldn’t keep clinging onto her friends much longer, they weren’t holding on themselves. To be fair Lana wasn’t giving them much reason to, she and George had been fighting more consistently, she had been working with Umbridge more because she had to, her parents were watching her every step at the moment. They had been avoiding her a fair bit, and although it was rather lonely, Lana did find herself getting a lot more done in hours that weren’t spent laughing with them.

Felix walked into the room, his face had gone a funny colour and he was stumbling slightly. He made his way over to his seat and stared at Lana for a moment, looking horror struck. Lana knew what had gotten him like this, he looked as bad as she felt.

“You okay?” She asked knowing that he probably wasn’t.

“No, how are you so calm? did you not see the news this morning?”

“No, I had a long duty last night, I was in and out of the great hall in about five minutes, didn’t even touch my paper, why? what’s happened?”

“There’s been a mass breakout from Azkaban, ten of you-know-who’s most loyal followers somehow managed to find a way back to the streets.”

“What?” Lana feigned shock, she then surveyed Felix for a moment, he was bouncing his knee and fiddling with his quill in a very panicked manner. “Hey, are you good? You seem on edge?”

“Yeah I’m fine, it’s just,” He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “There’s this one guy that’s gotten out, Rookwood, he um, he killed my aunt.”

“Felix, I’m so sorry.” Lana was taken aback, she had known that the relatives of these monsters’ victims would be walking these halls, she just never expected to have someone so close to her be affected.

“I’m okay, I never met her, but this will have messed my mum up a bit, I’ll need to write to her at break.”

They spent the rest of the lesson copying up notes from the blackboard of the textbook. It was simple and planned and Lana needed that in her life. She and Felix didn’t speak much for the rest of the lesson, Lana knew that Alex had ended things between them, he didn’t seem too upset so she was sure that he had explained why. They were still being friendly, sitting next to each other at breakfast and dinner. But Alex hated it, he had started to talk to a girl in fifth year called Daphne Greengrass, Lana was fairly sure that she was in the same situation as Alex was, so they had decided to work together to keep each other safe.

The main topic of conversation for the next week was the breakout. It was all you could hear in the corridors. Wild theories about their whereabouts spread like wildfire and the relatives of victims had become celebrities, Felix couldn’t so much as walk down the corridor without being stared at. Harry was also getting even more attention, but to Lana’s secret delight it seemed to be more positive. The holes in the Ministry’s story were starting to show, and this was solidifying Harry’s story at the same time.

The mood around the school was a fearful one, the teachers were not allowed to discuss anything that did not have links to their subject. This had led to students finding creative ways to ask questions to try and get their questions answered, asking professor McGonagall id she reckoned that the death eaters had used transfiguration to escape. Umbridge was still holding up her authority, she had decided that Trelawny and Hagrid were not at the standard that she wanted them to be, she had begun to observe them in their every lesson. Lana did not take either of their subjects so this didn’t affect her too much, Mandy on the other hand was extremely worried, she loved Hagrid and his subject and did not want him to be fired. Of course, Lana didn’t hear this from Mandy herself, she had heard it from George from one of their many nights up on the Astronomy Tower. Her friends had been avoiding her ever since the news from Azkaban, they were doing it subtly. Lana would walk into a classroom, all the seats next to them would be taken, and she could never find them at breakfast, lunch or dinner.

The news had shaken everyone and Lana wasn’t the only one who was facing consequences Slytherin students everywhere were losing friends. No one wanted to be close to the people who were somewhat associated with what had happened. They had started to form new groups of just Slytherins so that no one could get hurt. Lana had spent many nights in the common room consoling first and second years who had been abandoned by best friends in other houses. It tended to be that hot headed Gryffindor’s would act like heroes and tell their impressionable Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff friends that Slytherins were not to be trusted. A little bit of Lana wanted to kill anyone of them, especially when she was helping a distraught fourth year girl who she had seen around the corridors a lot with a large group of friends, who was now alone in the common room crying her eyes out whilst reading a letter telling her that she wasn’t welcome with them anymore. Teenage girls were a lot.

It had been a week and a half since the news of Azkaban had hit the papers and Lana had finally managed to catch her friends at breakfast, they were all sat at the Gryffindor table in a small huddle as if trying to hide from her. she sat down next to George and began to put some pancakes on her plate. None of them said a word, they all just played with their food or gave each other looks.

“Morning everyone.” Lana tried to act casual knowing what was coming. They all avoided her eyes, she looked around them, this was it, wasn’t it? she hadn’t expected for it to happen this quickly, she had expected them to give some kind of a fight, to hold onto her. To try.

“Everything alright?” She asked tentatively. Fred spoke first and looked at her with a cold expression.

“Everything’s fine, how are your death eater pals?” Lana was taken aback; she had not expected them to be that harsh.

“Woah, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Have you met Dolohov? He killed our uncles, bet your buddies with him, aren’t you?”

“Hey!” Lana’s tone was soft, as if she was still holding out hope to reason with them. “You guys don’t seriously think I had anything to do with that? I was here!” Mandy looked around fearfully.

“Fred doesn’t mean that, he’s just upset but we’re worried about you Lan, you’ve been acting odd, and your hands…” Mandy trailed off looking down at Lana’s fingers, which had gotten worse. Every time Lana had tried to get rid of the scarring more thin lines had begun to twist their way round her fingers, larger clumps of scarring had formed in some places, she had decided to leave them alone.

“I’m fine, I’ve just got a lot going on.”

“That’s clear.” Lucy’s tone was cold like Fred’s. “You’ve been blowing up over the smallest things and acting odd, you’re working with Umbridge and hanging around the wrong kinds of people.”

“You think I want any of this?” Lana was getting angry, were they even trying to help her? They were certainly going about it the wrong way. Diane was surveying her in a way that Lana didn’t like, it was almost like she knew something. After what felt like hours, though it could’ve only been a few seconds, she spoke.

“Roll up your right sleeve.” Lana froze, Diane couldn’t be asking what she thought she was. Had it only taken that long for suspicions to rise. The only clarity Lana had in that moment was that Diane was checking the wrong arm. It was an easy mistake to make, no one really talked about the dark mark, it was a taboo between wizards who could remember the first war. Parents didn’t often explain it to their kids. As a result of this, the only people who tended to know were those who had grown up seeing them on their parent’s arms. Lana stared at them all for a moment, some of them looked defiant, some looked shocked. She turned to George to give him a pleading look; he didn’t look her in the eyes.

“Fine.” She said coldly, rolling up her sleeve. “If that’s what you want.” She slammed her bare arm onto the table for them all to see, other people had begun to stare. “Are you all happy now?” She got up from her seat and made her way to the entrance hall.

Lana spent the rest of her day sitting in the back of classrooms and taking long winding routes to get to class to make sure she did not have to look one of them in the eyes. They all tried to catch her, to apologise but she rushed off before they could. Lana had her last lesson period free so she decided to work on an essay in the herbology section of the library as she didn’t expect anyone to look for her in there.

So she didn’t notice Ava walk in and sit down next to her. They sat in silence until Ava finally spoke.

“Sprout essay?” She asked plainly. Lana started slightly but didn’t let it show.

“How’d you find me?” She asked, not looking up and keeping her tone just as plain.

“I knew you had this essay due, and you hate herbology, perfect hiding place and all that.”

“I see.” Lana dotted her I and dipped her quill. They stayed quiet, just sitting.

“Diane got two things wrong this morning.” Ava said after a few minutes.

“Yeah?”

“Yes, first she sprung that question on you out of nowhere, in front of everyone, she should’ve done it more discreetly.” She shuffled in her seat a bit as she tried to figure out what she wanted to say next. Lana decided to prompt her.

“And second?”

“She checked the wrong arm.” Lana froze, she should’ve seen this coming, she thought she had got a bit more time left, but Ava was too smart. “The dark mark is on the left arm, everyone in our community knows that.” Lana felt like she couldn’t breathe. “I didn't correct her because I was so shocked that Diane had asked, but you didn’t correct her either.” Lana had dropped her quill and was now fiddling with her fingers, which were still covered in scars. “At first I thought that you hadn’t because it didn’t matter either way, the point still stood, but then I realised that you would’ve wanted to prove your point even further.” Ava stood up, Lana felt so small compared to her, she stood up to level it out, so she wouldn’t be so scared.

“You need to understand that I never wanted any of this.” There was a deep lump in her throat that was threatening to cry if she spoke again. The dream that all of this was pretend had shattered, she had been clinging to the idea that this wasn’t real and couldn’t hurt her. but it was real and it hurt so much. This was Ava, someone she regarded to be her best friend, the one who she had met on the train, the one she had battled through the constant remarks with, they had made it through Lana being champion together they had made it through losing Tom together. And here was where they split paths. “I wanted to get out, like you, but I just wasn’t quick enough.” Ava’s eyes were welling now as silent tears slid down Lana’s cheeks.

“Lana we can fix this, we can still get you out.” Lana looked around to make sure that no one could hear them, but she supposed that it didn’t matter anymore.

“No, we can’t.” She rolled up her sleeve so Ava could see the black mark on Lana’s arm. “My fate is sealed.”

Lana grabbed her stuff, shoved it in her bag, rolled her sleeve back down and ran out of the library. She wasn’t too sure where she was going but she wanted to get there quickly. The astronomy tower would be deserted as it was not late enough for lessons, she ran all the way up the castle and to the fresh air of the tower. She sat on one of the benches and put her tongue on the roof of her mouth, she was not going to cry again, she had done too much of that.

There were birds singing in the sky as she thought everything over, she had known this was coming, sure it was a shock to the system but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. She was going to be fine. She scavenged through her robes and found the polaroid of her and Tom. It didn’t bring as much pain as it used to, she smiled at it fondly and thought about how he would handle her in this situation. He would put an arm around her before telling her how proud he was, somehow Lana knew that he would be in on it, he would be one of the elites, keeping George on his toes when he found out that George knew but he wasn’t supposed to. Lana let out a small laugh at the thought.

She then went on imagining what it would be like on the other side of this, how her friends would react to her being back, to what she had to go through. She thought about healer training, how that would have to be put on hold for a little while.

She heard footsteps come up behind her. The distinct smell of peppermint and gunpowder wafted its way to her nose. George sat down next to her and put his hand over hers. She rested her head on his shoulder for a minute.

“So, do they hate me?” She asked in her best attempt at a laughing tone.

“No? They feel terrible.” He sounded so stunned, Lana was taken aback until it dawned on her…

“Ava hasn’t told you guys?”

“Told us what?”

“She knows,” Lana said plainly, “figured me out when I didn’t correct Diane about the mark.”

“I see,” George seemed to calm, considering the circumstances. “Well we knew this would come eventually, guess we should go down there and ‘break up’.” He did a small parenthesis with the hand that wasn’t holding himself and Lana up.

“Yeah I guess we should.” She didn’t know why but the fact that they were treating all this like a small chore that wouldn’t deeply affect their lives, made everything seem a lot easier to manage. They got up from their seats and made their way back to the castle.

Once they had made it back to the Great Hall and knew that people would be in earshot, they began the conversation that Lana had been dreading ever since George had first sat down next to her at the lake and looked at her arm. They had planned this meticulously, down the exact words they were saying, the only thing they had not planned was the timing on the grounds that when the time was right, they would know. As they entered the hall the rest of their group got up from their seats, assuming that if Lana was with George, then things must be alright. However, they all froze when they heard the conversation topic.

“So what is this? A breakup?” George asked, playing shocked and indignant very well.

“Yeah I guess it is.” Lana had rehearsed this in her head over and over again, to the point where it didn’t feel real, now, she was still just practicing. Everything else had come crashing down, but this, this had always been completely in her control. And she was clinging to that feeling. “You’re not good for me.” She said coldly, the group were keeping their distance some had even gone to sit back down but they were all listening intently. “And I’m not good for you,” She said more softly, “I’ve got too much going on in my life, too many external factors.”

“And who let you make all the decisions on whether or not we’re good for each other?”

“Who says I’m deciding?” I was a good thing that Lana had never been good with managing her emotions, otherwise this would not be anywhere near as convincing. Silent tears slipped their way down Lana’s cheeks and she made her way out of the hall.


End file.
